Milton Avery was one of the few American masters of figure painting during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Emphasizing broad, flattened planes of color in the tradition of Matisse, his work has a personal poetry of forms which are arresting and moving. In the 30’s and 40’s he painted in representational images, but subordinated line to color, using delicately modulated color shapes to define form. Avery stood apart from the Social Realists of his generation but was a major link between the color paintings and collages of Matisse and the American color-field painters of the 1950’s and 1960’s such as his good friend, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler and Adolph Gottlieb. His later work concentrated more on pure landscape and more abstract forms.

Albert Wein was born in New York in 1915 and was the only son of an accomplished woman artist, Elsa Wein. Elsa’s influence and intense commitment to nurturing the young Albert’s seemingly insatiable appetite for artistic expression had a profound effect on the developing artist. He built upon this artistic foundation for the rest of his life. To say that Albert Wein was a child prodigy is no mere boast. In 1927, when Albert was just twelve years old, Elsa Wein, “a true studio mother” moved the family to Maryland so she could enroll the budding young artist, Albert, and herself, into the Maryland Institute College of Art, a school that adhered to a curriculum of “academic based Classicism.” At the time of his enrollment, Albert Wein was the youngest student ever to enroll in the college Art courses at the Maryland Institute. After more than a year of “rigid” instruction, the 1929 Stock Market crash (and resulting economic impact it had on the Wein family) put an end to his studies at the institute. The family was forced to return to New York City to seek alternative employment. In 1929 at the age of 14 while attending high school in the Bronx, in New York City, Wein registered for night classes at the National Academy of Design and sought out study in the Life Drawing Class of the well-known American Impressionist painter, Ivan Olinsky. At first, Olinsky’s reaction to the request was not favorable because at the time no 14-year-old student had ever been admitted into a Life Drawing Class at the National Academy. This was due in part to the obvious age requirements in working with live models. Olinsky, after meeting personally with the serious young applicant, reviewed his work and at once recognized Wein’s artistic talent and made an exception for him. Albert Wein once again became the youngest attendee among his peers in an advanced art class. Early in 1932 Wein enrolled in classes at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City where he expanded upon his academic education in sculpture while studying under some of the most prominent practitioners in their field. The Beaux Arts Institute was a school modeled after the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in France and the curriculum (among other things) prepared students for national competitions in the architectural application of their work. This early architectural based training proved to be invaluable throughout Wein’s career as it applied to the large-scale public projects he would later produce. In 1933, Wein’s early inclination towards the modernist art movement that was sweeping America and the rest of the art world led to his decision to enroll in the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts at 444 Madison Avenue in New York City. At the time he enrolled, Wein was very aware that Hans Hofmann was regarded as one of the most respected leaders in the forefront of modernism and eagerly anticipated Hofmann’s instruction. It was around this time that Wein, building upon his early unprecedented training in the classical tradition, sculpted "Adam," an early cubist influenced modernist masterwork. This work was a precursor to what would become his signature modernization/stylization of the classical form. In fact, Albert Wein was once quoted as saying that the main thrust of his work was "to modernize and stylize the classical tradition". In 1934, at the age of 19, Wein took a pay-cut from his secular job as an artist working for an advertising company in New York City to join the WPA. This was an extremely productive period for him and he was able to produce many fine works for both private commissions and award winning national competitions. The works of this period gained him widespread recognition among collectors and fellow artists. Among the many honors and awards bestowed upon Albert Wein during his illustrious career included those of the coveted Prix de Rome, the highest award in art, “likened to that of the Nobel Prize” the Tiffany Foundation Fellowship, the Rockefeller Foundation grant for study and more. He also participated in the "watershed" exhibition, American Sculpture in 1951 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. American Sculpture is considered by many to be one of the most important early exhibitions of modernist sculpture in America. In 1979 Wein was elected to full Academician of the National Academy of Design, one of the highest honors an American artist can receive. During his prodigious career he won every major prize available in exhibitions held at the National Sculpture Society and the National Academy of Design, the two leading art institutions of the day. Some of his important commissions include those for the Brookgreen Gardens, (the world’s largest outdoor Sculpture Garden) Steuben Glass Co., The Bronx Zoo, The Franklin Mint and The Libby Dam bas-relief, to name just a few. The latter work, Wein’s Libby Dam project was a massive artistic and engineering accomplishment. The three-story sculpture that Wein created is the world’s largest granite bas-relief carving, weighing some 70 tons. It took a team of men working under his direction, three years to complete. The Libby Dam bas-relief "has been likened by critics to other sculptures in the U.S. grand tradition such as Daniel Chester French’s seated figure of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, Gutzon Borglum’s Mount Rushmore and Paul Manship’s gilded bronze statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center Plaza." Wein, in addition to being an excellent sculptor was also a very prolific and talented easel painter who painted in a purely Abstract Expressionist style. He approached painting much the same way he did his sculptural work, from a sound academic based foundation that gave him the legitimacy and freedom to express his modernist views. His paintings have been widely exhibited and have gained him much notoriety. Very few artists of the twentieth century have so successfully achieved a balance between the extremes of Classicism and Modernism, as did Albert Wein. His sound foundation of academic excellence provided the basis for the stylized, modernistic approach that set him apart from his contemporaries. Wein Felt that "every good work of art is a good abstract composition" or could at least be represented by one. That the subject, devoid of details, and pared down to only what is necessary to convey the "essence" of the composition is what really mattered in a truly great work of art. Albert Wein unexpectedly passed away in March of 1991, leaving behind a legacy of spectacular works that have universal appeal in part because of his unique ability to forge a union between centuries of artistic style. Gordon Friedlander – close friend and son of Albert’s artistic mentor, Leo Friedlander, the 21st president of the National sculpture society stated eloquently: "Albert’s work will live on and will endure." These sculptures have already passed the test of time – the true measure of the worth of all creative people."

A landscape and marine artist, George Symons was one of America’s more noted plein-air painters who combined styles of impressionism and realism. His works are cited for their energy and simplicity, and he often did panoramic views.

He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1861, with the name of George Gardner Simon, but he changed his last name to Symons when he returned from study in England because of concern about anti-semitism. Not much is known about his early life. He first studied at the Chicago Art Institute where he became a close, life-long friend of William Wendt. They painted together in California and then in Cornwall, England in 1898. He also studied in Paris, and Munich and London, and joining a colony of artists at St. Ives, adopted the plein-air techniques of Julius Olsson, Adrian Stokes, and Rudolph Hellwag.

He worked in Chicago as a commercial artist, and about 1903 returned to California with Wendt and built a studio in Laguna Beach and became active in western art societies including the California Art Club. He returned often, but maintained his primary studio in Brooklyn, New York, and also did a lot of painting in Colerain, Massachusetts.

Among the collections where his work can be found is the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Fleischer Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona. Associations he was a member of include the National Academy of Design, the National Arts Club, the Institute of Arts and Letters, the Lotos, Century, and Salmagundi Clubs.  He was also a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and the Union Internationale des Beaux Arts et des Lettres.

He painted entirely out-of-doors, frequently working in Arizona, doing desert landscape and the Grand Canyon views, which "were well received", (Dawdy 424), but he is best known for his New England snow scenes, especially of the Berkshire Mountains.  He died in Hillside, New Jersey in 1930.

Source:
Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
Doris Dawdy, Artists of the American West, Vol. III
Anonymous Author, "The Outlook for Etching", The American Magazine of Art, March 1930

-From AskArt

A first-generation Abstract Expressionists, Theodoros Stamos is known for paintings done later in his career, which is large expanses of dissolved light. Underestimated at first by Clement Greenberg, New York critic whose commentary often decided the reputation of Abstract Expressionists, Greenberg later wrote: I scorched his show and I was wrong. You keep on learning." (Falk 3138)

Of his painting, Stamos said: "The great figurative painters were involved with grandeur of vision, using the figure as a means to an end, whereas today the best of the abstrtact painters are also involved with a grandeur of vision using color as their means toward a new space-light." (Herskovic 318)

Stamos was also an art educator and held positions at the Art Students League, Columbia University, Black Mountain College and Brandeis University.

Stamos was born in Manhattan to Greek immigrant parents and studied sculpture for three years, 1936 to 1939, at the American Artist’s School. In 1939, he turned to painting, and in this medium was basically self taught.

With their amorphous shapes and busy lines, his first paintings resembled those of Mark Rothko, who became his close companion, and of William Baziotes. Stamos’ colors were in tonal clusters, vague and undifferentiated.

During the 1940s, Theodore Stamos ran a framing shop near Union Square where his customers included modernists Arshile Gorky and Fernand Leger. In 1943, he had his first solo show at Betty Parsons Gallery. Several years later, he began painting with distinct bands of color, usually black or very dark, and then in the 1950s, his work was much less controlled, more violent, emotive, and confrontational.

In 1950, Theodore Stamos was the youngest artist to be included in the famous "irascibles" photograph of leading Abstract Expressionists. He began a "Sun Box" series in 1963 with shapes that took on enormous size, filling almost the entire surface of the canvas, with the suggestion of atmospheric light and organic expansion.

A close friend of Mark Rothko’s, he was executor of his estate and later found guilty of negligence in a 1975 trial. He and the Marlborough Gallery were fine $9.2 million dollars.

In later years he lived between New York and the Greek Island of Lefkada.

Sources include:
Matthew Baigell, "Dictionary of American Art"
Marika Herskovic, "American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s: An Illustrated Survey"
Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art"

-From AskArt

Peder Mork Monsted, (1859-1941)

Born at the end of the ‘golden age’ of Danish painting, Monsted can be described as a product of that era. A landscape painter renowned for the clarity of light common to the painters of that age, his naturalistic ‘plain air’ views made him the leading Danish landscapist of his age.

Monsted was born in Balle near Ganaa in eastern Denmark before moving to Copenhagen. Here he studied at the Academy between 1875 and 1876, under Andries Fritz (1828 1906), a landscape and portrait painter, and was taught figure painting by Julius Exner (1825 1910). Here too he would have come across the work of artists such as Christen Kobke (1810 1848), an outstanding colourist and Pieter Christian Skorgaard (1817 1875), a romantic nationalist painter, a knowledge of whose work is seen in the Danish landscapes and beech forests of Monsted’s.

Monsted traveled extensively throughout his long career, being a frequent visitor to Switzerland, Italy and North Africa. As early as 1884, he visited North Africa returning later in the decade.

The early years of the twentieth century saw Monsted returning to Switzerland, the south of France and Italy, the latter being the source of inspiration for many Scandinavian artists of the nineteenth century. The war years curtailed Monsted’s travel to Norway and Sweden, however the 1920’s and 1930’s saw him return to the Mediterranean.

Throughout his long career, Monsted continued to paint the Danish landscape and coastline. His is a romantic, poetic view of nature; he was an artist who depicted the grandeur and monumental aspect of the landscape, with a remarkable eye for detail and colour.

Born in Russia, Ossip Zadkine spent most of his career in Paris, except 1940 to 1945, when he lived in New York City during the war years. He was known for his cubist and expressionist sculptures, carved in wood, and he experimented in the use of concavities, meaning "creating open space with within the space determined by the material." (Gardner 777).

He is credited as an important teacher of American direct wood carvers including Israel Levitan, Sidney Geist, Gabriel Kohn, Hugh Townley, and George Sugarman.

Source:
Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art"
Helen Gardner, "Art Through the Ages"

Biography from AskArt

Only a few artists come to mind when one attempts to classify accurate recorders of Montana history and it’s Native Americans. Charles M. Russell more than adequately captured the more northwestern tribes of the Blackfeet, Nez Perce, Blood and their relatives. Henry Farny and Frederic Remington both did a magnificent job on a similar range of tribes as well. However, none did so unique an artistic rendering of the Plains Indian tribes as did Joseph Henry Sharp. Between 1897 and his death in 1955 he portrayed the Crow, Cheyenne, Sioux, Shoshone, Arapaho and Blackfeet as well as any and better than almost any other artist of this period. Mrs. Phoebe Hearst was directly responsible for the incentive that brought Sharp to Crow Agency in Southwestern Montana in 1902 for it was here that he chose to pursue her commission of 75 portraits of members of every major Plains tribe. The entire collection, along with 80 previously purchased portraits, was gifted to the University of California at Berkeley. Sharp had visited Montana as far north as Glacier Park and the Canadian border as early as 1897 but had returned to Cincinnati to continue his career. His prior journeys did, however, provide a certain sense of familiarity for the artist and his wife when they moved to Montana in 1902 thus beginning a pattern followed by many artists to settle and establish their studios in the heart of their chosen subjects and, of course, their inspiration. Sharp found that painting portraits on a commission basis was a very promising career when in Cincinnati and he was elated to be able to continue this in Montana for Ms. Hearst. His subjects didn’t stop at portraiture however as evidenced by his stunning compositional landscapes with their encampment scenes and their passive Native American genre. These were quite unlike the war cries and battle scenes left to us by Charlie Russell and Frederic Remington. The gentle interpretations of this kindly easterner became known far and wide as a worthy successor to his mentor, Henry Farny, with whom he shared a studio and who had until the early 1900’s been the almost exclusive artist of the Northern Plains south of Great Falls where Russell held ground. Sharp’s travels both early and later would include and perhaps emphasize Taos and its environs. He chose, however, to depict the Northern Plains after Henry Farny’s age ended his western travels there. Sharp avoided that subject apparently out of respect for the elder Farny who had firmly established himself as the definitive artist of the Northern Plains tribes. It was Sharp’s belief that the demise of the buffalo coupled with the Indian Wars and the reservation system would hasten the disappearance of the Plains culture and traditions. He gauged very precisely and the examples that he left are accurate, poignant and sensitive all at once. His records of the Plains Indian genre stir emotions not usually experienced in nonnative interpretations. It is difficult to view a work by this artist and not encounter some stirring sensation on an emotion yet discovered. Sharp would go on to carve a niche for himself and his work that would claim title to extreme relevancy in the reflection of the Native American culture. The emphasis in his early career of southeastern Montana and bordering Wyoming would come to be some of the most pursued artistic interpretations of it’s kind.
			and Blackfeet as well as any and better than almost any other artist of this period. Mrs. Phoebe Hearst was directly responsible for the incentive that brought Sharp to Crow Agency in Southwestern Montana in 1902 for it was here that he chose to pursue her commission of 75 portraits of members of every major Plains tribe. The entire collection, along with 80 previously purchased portraits, was gifted to the University of California at Berkeley. Sharp had visited Montana as far north as Glacier Park and the Canadian border as early as 1897 but had returned to Cincinnati to continue his career. His prior journeys did, however, provide a certain sense of familiarity for the artist and his wife when they moved to Montana in 1902 thus beginning a pattern followed by many artists to settle and establish their studios in the heart of their chosen subjects and, of course, their inspiration.
							The gentle interpretations of this kindly easterner became known far and wide as a worthy successor to his mentor, Henry Farny, with whom he shared a studio and who had until the early 1900’s been the almost exclusive artist of the Northern Plains south of Great Falls where Russell held ground. Sharp’s travels both early and later would include and perhaps emphasize Taos and its environs. He chose, however, to depict the Northern Plains after Henry Farny’s age ended his western travels there. Sharp avoided that subject apparently out of respect for the elder Farny who had firmly established himself as the definitive