Born: July 14, 1845, Greenbush, NY
Died: September 17, 1907 in London, England (Historical Estimate)
Art Movement: Neoclassicism
Historical Era (ProQuest Database): Civil War and Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)

ART LESSON

Born: June 21, 1859, Pittsburgh, PA
Died: May 25, 1937, Paris, France
Art Movement: Realism
Historical Era (ProQuest Database): Jim Crow From 1878 To The Great Depression (1878-1932)

ART LESSON

Born: April 16, 1945 in Philadelphia, PA
Died: April 18, 2017 in New London, CT
Art Movement: Contemporary (second half of the 20th century-present)
Historical Era (ProQuest Database): The Civil Rights and Black Power Movement (1946-1975)

ART LESSON

Born: July 30, 1926, Los Angeles, CA
Art Movement:Contemporary (second half of the 20th century-present)
Historical Era (ProQuest Database): Contemporary Era (1976-2000)

ART LESSON

Born: April 17, 1931, Antigua, Guatemala
Died: July 1, 1998, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Art Movement: Contemporary 
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Margarita Azurdia was one of the most important artists in Guatemalan art history and was a multifaceted artist with an innate interest in fluctuating between diverse artistic languages and distinct geographic points around the world. Born in 1931 in Antigua, Guatemala, Margarita Azurdia was primarily self-taught, she first became known as an artist under the name Margot Fanjul. Her first solo exhibition, in 1963, set the tone for her career as a constant, irreverent experimenter. Throughout her trajectory, Azurdia produced an extensive body of work that ranged between painting, sculpture, performance, ritual, dance, artist books, collage and poetry. The influential Argentine critic Marta Traba extolled her paintings as among the most emblematic examples of art from Central America.

Born: Oct. 21, 1911, McAlester, OK 
Died: July 26, 1978, Soquel, CA 
Art Movement: Modern 
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Mary Blair was an American artist, animator, and designer. In 1933, at the height of the Depression, Mary took a job in the animation unit of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer rather than pursue her dream of a fine arts career. In 1940, she joined the Walt Disney Studio and worked on concept art for the animated feature films Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. Blair was a prominent concept artist in producing art and animation for The Walt Disney Company, working on films such as Fantasia, Dumbo, and Pinocchio. Mary Blair left Disney in 1953 to concentrate on illustrating children’s books and raising a family. She illustrated a series of Little Golden Books for publisher Simon and Schuster, of which her most popular was titled I Can Fly. In 1963 Walt Disney asked Blair to assist in the design of the It’s a Small World attraction for the World’s Fair in New York. Her concept art on this project would be her final major designs for Disney. The outcome was an attraction that very much showcases Mary Blair’s aesthetic and style. The It’s a Small World ride proved extremely popular at the Worlds Fair and was later adapted for use in Disneyland and Disney World.

Born: March 16, 1822, Bordeaux, France
Died: May 25, 1899, Thomery, France
Art Movement: Realism
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Rosa Bonheur established herself as one of the foremost “animalier,” or animal painters, of her time. Through contacts, exhibitions, and reproductions disseminated worldwide, Rosa Bonheur’s work was well known throughout Europe and America. Her interest in painting live animals attracted considerable public attention and she harnessed this interest throughout her life and established a niche, commercially and artistically, for her work, becoming one of the most original and successful art figures of the 19th century. Rosa Bonheur’s illustrious career garnered her many prestigious accolades. She passed away in 1899 and is remembered for her fidelity to nature and her animals and for her strong beliefs in the equality of women. 

Born: May 22, 1844, Allegheny, PA
Died: June 14, 1926, Château de Beaufresne, Le Mesnil-Théribus, France
Art Movement: Impressionism 
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker, who was born into a prominent upper middle-class family. Despite her parent’s objections, Cassatt studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia when she was 15. As a woman, she was banned from using live models and was only permitted to draw from inanimate objects. She travelled to Europe to study privately with masters from the Ecole des Beaux Arts and found her independence as a professional artist. Mary Cassatt made her name as an Impressionist, known for her intimate and perceptive depictions of women, particularly mothers and children. She was one of the few American artists active in the nineteenth-century French avant-garde.

Born: 1987, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia 
Art Movement: Contemporary
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Red Hong Yi is a Chinese-Malaysian contemporary artist known as “the artist who paints without a paintbrush”. Red's artwork expresses her heritage and is characterized by the way she creates mixed media installations by reinterpreting everyday materials through the accumulation of objects.  She has used chili to “paint” Justin Bieber, chopsticks to make a portrait of Jackie Chan, materials like coffee dregs, dyed carnations, melted tea light candles makeup, candy, and food items. Red studied at the University of Melbourne and her work has been exhibited internationally. Sotheby’s Institute has named her one of the “11 art world entrepreneurs you should know” and Tatler Magazine has named her one of Asia’s most influential voices in 2020.

Born: Nov. 20, 1918, Fort Dodge, IA
Died: Sept. 18, 1986, Boston, MA
Art Movement: Pop Art 
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Corita Kent, also known as Sister Mary Corita, was an artist, educator and advocate for peace and social justice. Her vibrant serigraphs resonate with the Pop art style using words and images seen in everyday sources - from figurative and religious to incorporating advertising images and slogans, popular song lyrics, biblical verses and literature. Her work reflected her concerns about poverty, racism, and war. At the time of her death, she had created almost 800 serigraph editions, thousands of watercolors and innumerable public and private commissions. 

Born: March 22, 1929, Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan 
Art Movement: Pop Art, Contemporary 
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Yayoi Kusama is a renowned Japanese artist and writer, internationally famous for her pattern art and repetition-based psychedelic art. She uses a wide array of media that includes painting, collage sculpture, installations, and performance art. Her artwork evokes themes of psychology, feminism, obsession, sex, creation, destruction, and intense self-reflection. She came to the United States in 1957, inspired by a letter she received from Georgia O’Keefe. Kusama showed large paintings, soft sculptures, and environmental sculptures using mirrors and electric lights.  She returned to Japan in 1973 where she currently lives and works in Tokyo. 

Born: Nov. 5, 1956, Mexico City, Mexico
Art Movement: Contemporary
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Magali Lara is a visual artist, cultural agent, and teacher who works in a variety of mediums, including painting, collage, artist's books, and installation. Since the 1970’s Lara has worked with art themes such as identity, the feminine, feminism, otherness, and the connection between inside and outside. With more than forty years as an artist and twenty as a teacher, she has had numerous solo exhibitions in national and international museums, and her work forms part of many renowned collections. She studied at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas and currently lives in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she teaches at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos. 

Born:Sept. 23, 1899, Pereiaslav, Ukraine
Died:April 17, 1988, New York, NY
Art Movement: Modern  
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Louise Nevelson was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Nevelson experimented with early conceptual art using found objects. Usually created out of wood, her sculptures appear puzzle-like, with multiple intricately cut pieces placed into wall sculptures or independently standing pieces, often three dimensional. A unique feature of her work is that her figures are often painted in monochromatic black or white. 

Born: April 24, 1889, Moscow Governorate  
Died: May 25, 1924, Moscow, Russia 
Art Movement: Cubism, Constructivism 
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Lyubov Popova was one of the most distinctly individual artists of the Russian avant-garde, who excelled as a painter, graphic artist, theatrical set designer, textile designer, teacher and art theorist.  Popova was a radical multimedia artist and designer, who worked at a time when there were extremely few women artists respected by art institutions or schools. Popova was one of the first female pioneers in Cubo-Futurism, the main school of painting and sculpture practiced by Russian Futurists. Popova focused on incorporating geometric shapes, multiple angles and interlocking planes creating the energy of movement in her abstract art. 

Born: Oct. 8, 1930, Harlem, NY 
Art Movement: Contemporary 
Art Lesson

Short Biography: Faith Ringgold is an American artist and author who became famous for creating innovative, quilted narrations that communicate her family's history and important political beliefs. Drawing her inspiration from world art, and in honor of her mother’s early sewing influence, Ringgold began a series of quilts that are perhaps her best-known work. These quilts also led to a literary career, publishing children’s books adapted from her quilt narrations. Ringgold grew up during the Harlem Renaissance, was a public school teacher, raised two daughters, received bachelor's and master's degrees in art, worked in many different art mediums throughout her career, and used her art to highlight issues and people regardless of controversy. Ms. Ringgold is professor emeritus at University of California, San Diego where she taught art from 1987 until 2002. Professor Ringgold is the recipient of more than 75 awards including 22 Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees.

Born: 1980, Los Angeles 
Art Movement: Contemporary
Art Lesson    

Short Biography: Sonia Romero is a Los Angeles artist known for her paper-cut and printmaking aesthetics, which she incorporates into both her fine art and public art commissions. Born in 1980, she grew up in an artistic household in Echo Park before formally studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. Calling upon her own experiences and perspectives as a multiracial person, Romero creates work that reflects the cultural diversity found in the communities of Los Angeles. She explores themes relating to the universal connectedness within humanity as well as its relationship to the environment. Her signature style, a dynamic combination of printmaking, paper-cutting, painting, and sculpture, includes fine art pieces that have been showcased in many galleries and acquired into the collections of prominent institutions such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Smithsonian. Her distinctive paper-cut shapes and patterns can be found in steel, tile, or paint in one of her many large-scale permanent installations in notable locations such as Little Tokyo, the Mariachi Plaza and MacArthur Park Metro Stations and the Artesia County Public Library.