Defining an artistic era or movement is often a difficult task, as one tries to group individualistic expressions and artwork under one broad brush. Such is the case with impressionism, which culls together the art of a multitude of painters in the mid-19th century, including Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, and van Gogh. Basically, impressionism involved the shedding of traditional painting methods. The subjects of art were taken from everyday life, as opposed to the pages of mythology and history. In addition, each artist painted to express feelings of the moment instead of hewing to time-honoured standards. This description of impressionism, obviously, is quite broad and can apply to a wide array of styles. Nonetheless, it remains a very important school in the annals of art. Any current or budding art aficionado should become familiar with the impressionist movement and its impact on the art world. This book presents a sweeping study of this artistic period, from its origins to its manifestations in the works of some of art history's most revered painters. Following this overview is a substantial and selective bibliography, featuring access through author, title, and subject indexes.

Born in Manchester in 1882, Sylvia grew up in a bohemian household that played host to great activists and artists such as Keir Hardie, George Bernard Shaw, William Morris, Thomas Mann, and Anne Besant. Sylvia inherited her father's unshakeable idealism,nbsp;taking over an East End pub and converting it into a maternity clinic, a Montessori school, and a day nursery. Up until his death in 1915, Sylvia was involved in an anguished lover affair with Keir Hardie, co-founder of the Independent Labour Party. She finally made her home in Ethiopia, enthusiastically joining the people in their struggle for independence. On her death in 1960, she was honored with a State funeral. Drawing on her journals, letters, writings, and paintings, this is the fascinating story of her colorful life.

Survey of hundreds of artists who worked in this Suffolk seaside village in England, including Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Wilson Steer, Stanley Spencer and many more.

This comprehensive volume presents the biographies of 1,000 women who were active in the British decorative arts over the last few centuries. Some of these women are known today, some are not, yet all made valuable contributions in areas such as stained glass, metalwork, pottery, woodcarving, illustration, bookbinding and decoration, sculpture, decorative embroidery, decorative jewellery, and illumination. This volume is the largest of its kind to document the lives and careers of some British women artists and decorative artists, published in Britain to date, and helps to shed new light on a still-neglected area of British art and design history. It includes entries for well-known artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Mary Lowndes, and Alice Woodward, alongside influential but forgotten women such as Mary Symonds, Amy Singer, and Catherine Donaldson. Researched and written by Dr. Sara Gray over a period of eight years, this book is her third to be published. She completed a B.A. Hons Degree in 1992 at Bolton University, followed by a Ph.D. in 2002 awarded by Manchester University. She has a particular interest in the work of British women artists and in regional arts and crafts.

Scholarly essays on the achievements of female artists working in and inspired by the American South Looking back at her lengthy career just four years before her death, modernist painter Nell Blaine said, "Art is central to my life. Not being able to make or see art would be a major deprivation." The Virginia native's creative path began early, and, during the course of her life, she overcame significant barriers in her quest to make and even see art, including serious vision problems, polio, and paralysis. And then there was her gender. In 1957 Blaine was hailed by Life magazine as someone to watch, profiled alongside four other emerging painters whom the journalist praised "not as notable women artists but as notable artists who happen to be women." In Central to Their Lives, twenty-six noted art historians offer scholarly insight into the achievements of female artists working in and inspired by the American South. Spanning the decades between the late 1890s and early 1960s, this volume examines the complex challenges these artists faced in a traditionally conservative region during a period in which women's social, cultural, and political roles were being redefined and reinterpreted. The presentation—and its companion exhibition—features artists from all of the Southern states, including Dusti Bongé, Anne Goldthwaite, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Ida Kohlmeyer, Loïs Mailou Jones, Alma Thomas, and Helen Turner. These essays examine how the variables of historical gender norms, educational barriers, race, regionalism, sisterhood, suffrage, and modernism mitigated and motivated these women who were seeking expression on canvas or in clay. Whether working from studio space, in spare rooms at home, or on the world stage, these artists made remarkable contributions to the art world while fostering future generations of artists through instruction, incorporating new aesthetics into the fine arts, and challenging the status quo. Sylvia Yount, the Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, provides a foreword to the volume. Contributors: Sara C. Arnold Daniel Belasco Lynne Blackman Carolyn J. Brown Erin R. Corrales-Diaz John A. Cuthbert Juilee Decker Nancy M. Doll Jane W. Faquin Elizabeth C. Hamilton Elizabeth S. Hawley Maia Jalenak Karen Towers Klacsmann Sandy McCain Dwight McInvaill Courtney A. McNeil Christopher C. Oliver Julie Pierotti Deborah C. Pollack Robin R. Salmon Mary Louise Soldo Schultz Martha R. Severens Evie Torrono Stephen C. Wicks Kristen Miller Zohn