On This Day

AUGUST 17, ON THIS DAY Painter, sculptor, poet, filmmaker, actor and musician Larry Rivers was an established figure in the New York School (an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City), who gained acclaim for creating large paintings merging abstract and narrative elements. […]

AUGUST 16, ON THIS DAY Michelangelo was famously quoted as saying: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to release it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set it free”. On this day, 16 August, 1501 Michelangelo signs a contract

August 9, On This Day Anyone who is a fan of the classic rock genre of music is acquainted with the American band The Grateful Dead, formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band was even inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and many recognise principal songwriter, band lead

Chaïm Soutine was a Belarusian Expressionist painter who contributed significantly to the development of arts during his short yet eventful life. Born on January 13, 1893, he died on this day, on August 9, 1943. Born in a Jewish family, the tenth of eleven children, he studied art from 1910 to 1913 in Vilnius at a

August 8, On This Day Did you know that French painter Eugène Boudin motivated young Claude Monet to give up his teenage caricature drawings and become a landscape painter? Now that’s a legacy that still enthralls the world! Boudin was one of the first landscape painters of France to paint outdoors and an expert marine

August 8, On This Day  Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential Australian artists, Albert Namatjira was an Arrernte painter from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. Born on July 28, 1902, he passed away today, 63 years ago, on August 8, 1959. Namatjira is not only hailed as a pioneer of and

August 6, On This Day Andrew Warhola — more popularly known as Andy Warhol — has an artistic legacy that seems almost too vast to describe. Born on August 6, 1928, Warhol was a pioneer of pop art (mass-produced art that apotheosized the supposed banality of the commercial culture of the US), visual artist, film

George Clair Tooker, Jr., better known as George Tooker, an acclaimed American figurative painter, was born on this day, 5th August, 1920. He was raised in Brooklyn till the age of seven, after which he and his family moved to Bellport, Long Island. Tooker began taking painting lessons at age seven under professional artist Malcolm

July 28, On This Day    On July 28, 1866 — 156 years ago — at the age of 18, Lavinia Ellen ‘Vinnie’ Ream Hoxie became the first and youngest female artist to receive a commission from the United States government for a statue (of Abraham Lincoln). She had become an apprentice at well-known sculptor Clark Mills’s studio

July 28, On This Day Known for “luminous works” that provided “a striking portrayal of spirituality and simplicity”, Indian artist Manjit Bawa is also known as “a modernist master of the figurative genre”. Born on July 28, 1941, in Dhuri, Punjab, Bawa extensively “drew on Indian mythology and Sufi philosophy to paint vibrant depictions of