The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (342 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists Online
Authors: Ian Chilvers
Noland , Kenneth
(1924– ).
American abstract painter and sculptor. In 1949 he settled in Washington, where he became a close friend of Morris
Louis
. On a visit to New York in 1953 they were greatly impressed by Helen
Frankenthaler 's
Mountains and Sea
and they began experimenting with pouring and staining techniques. They became the leading figures of a group of
Colour Field painters
known as the Washington Color Painters, but from the late 1950s Noland tended to use more precisely articulated geometrical forms, and in the 1960s he became one of the chief exponents of
Hard Edge painting
. Initially he used concentric circles on a square canvas. This was followed by a chevron motif, sometimes on a diamond or lozenge-shaped canvas, and this again was gradually lengthened into horizontal stripes running across a canvas of a very long rectangular format. In 1966 he began to make sculpture, influenced by his friend Anthony
Caro
.
American abstract painter and sculptor. In 1949 he settled in Washington, where he became a close friend of Morris
Louis
. On a visit to New York in 1953 they were greatly impressed by Helen
Frankenthaler 's
Mountains and Sea
and they began experimenting with pouring and staining techniques. They became the leading figures of a group of
Colour Field painters
known as the Washington Color Painters, but from the late 1950s Noland tended to use more precisely articulated geometrical forms, and in the 1960s he became one of the chief exponents of
Hard Edge painting
. Initially he used concentric circles on a square canvas. This was followed by a chevron motif, sometimes on a diamond or lozenge-shaped canvas, and this again was gradually lengthened into horizontal stripes running across a canvas of a very long rectangular format. In 1966 he began to make sculpture, influenced by his friend Anthony
Caro
.
Nolde , Emil
(1867–1956).
German painter and graphic artist, one of the most powerful representatives of
Expressionism
. Born of a peasant family, he was originally trained as a wood-carver and came late to artistic maturity. His studies took him from his native North Germany to Munich and Paris, and from 1905 to 1907 he was a member of the
Brücke
in Dresden, but he was essentially an isolated figure, standing apart from his great German contemporaries. He moved around a good deal in Germany and was well travelled elsewhere (in 1913–14 he visited Russia, the Far East, and the South Sea islands as part of an ethnographic expedition), but at times he lived almost like a hermit. His travel broadened his knowledge of the kind of
primitive
art that was then beginning to excite avant-garde artists, but Nolde had already established the essential features of his style before his contact with such art, and when the term ‘primitive’ is applied to his work it refers to its brutal force, not to any exotic trappings. He was a deeply religious man and is now famous for his paintings of Old and New Testament subjects, in which he expresses intense emotion through violent colour, radically simplified drawing, and grotesque distortion. The majority of his pictures, however, were landscapes, and he was also one of the outstanding 20th-cent. exponents of flower painting, working with gloriously vivid colour, often in watercolour. He was also a prolific etcher and lithographer. Although he was a member of the Nazi Party, he was declared a
degenerate
artist by the Nazis and in 1941 forbidden to paint. He did, however, execute small watercolours in secret (these are called the ‘unpainted pictures’) and from these made larger oils after the war. From 1926 he lived at Seebüll, where there is now a Nolde Foundation that has an outstanding collection of his work.
German painter and graphic artist, one of the most powerful representatives of
Expressionism
. Born of a peasant family, he was originally trained as a wood-carver and came late to artistic maturity. His studies took him from his native North Germany to Munich and Paris, and from 1905 to 1907 he was a member of the
Brücke
in Dresden, but he was essentially an isolated figure, standing apart from his great German contemporaries. He moved around a good deal in Germany and was well travelled elsewhere (in 1913–14 he visited Russia, the Far East, and the South Sea islands as part of an ethnographic expedition), but at times he lived almost like a hermit. His travel broadened his knowledge of the kind of
primitive
art that was then beginning to excite avant-garde artists, but Nolde had already established the essential features of his style before his contact with such art, and when the term ‘primitive’ is applied to his work it refers to its brutal force, not to any exotic trappings. He was a deeply religious man and is now famous for his paintings of Old and New Testament subjects, in which he expresses intense emotion through violent colour, radically simplified drawing, and grotesque distortion. The majority of his pictures, however, were landscapes, and he was also one of the outstanding 20th-cent. exponents of flower painting, working with gloriously vivid colour, often in watercolour. He was also a prolific etcher and lithographer. Although he was a member of the Nazi Party, he was declared a
degenerate
artist by the Nazis and in 1941 forbidden to paint. He did, however, execute small watercolours in secret (these are called the ‘unpainted pictures’) and from these made larger oils after the war. From 1926 he lived at Seebüll, where there is now a Nolde Foundation that has an outstanding collection of his work.
Nollekens , Joseph
(1737–1823).
English sculptor, the son of an Antwerp painter of the same name (1702–47) who came to London in 1733. He was a pupil of
Scheemakers
. From 1760 to 1770 he worked in Rome, making a handsome living copying, restoring, faking, and dealing in
antique
sculpture. He also made a few portrait busts including that of Laurence Sterne (NPG, 1766), a splendid character study in the antique manner, and on his return to England it was chiefly as a portraitist that he built up his great reputation and fortune (he left £200,000 at his death). His finest portraits are vivacious and brilliantly characterized, but there are many inferior studio copies of his more popular works. He also made statues in a slightly erotic antique manner, and had a large practice as a tomb sculptor. Nollekens and his wife were well-known figures in London's artistic circles and were notorious skinflints. The life by his pupil and disappointed executor J. T. Smith (1766–1833),
Nollekens and his Times
(1828), gives a remarkable picture of their meanness and has been described by Rupert Gunnis (
Dictionary of British Sculptors
1660–1851, 1953) as probably ‘the most candid, pitiless and uncomplimentary biography in the English language’.
English sculptor, the son of an Antwerp painter of the same name (1702–47) who came to London in 1733. He was a pupil of
Scheemakers
. From 1760 to 1770 he worked in Rome, making a handsome living copying, restoring, faking, and dealing in
antique
sculpture. He also made a few portrait busts including that of Laurence Sterne (NPG, 1766), a splendid character study in the antique manner, and on his return to England it was chiefly as a portraitist that he built up his great reputation and fortune (he left £200,000 at his death). His finest portraits are vivacious and brilliantly characterized, but there are many inferior studio copies of his more popular works. He also made statues in a slightly erotic antique manner, and had a large practice as a tomb sculptor. Nollekens and his wife were well-known figures in London's artistic circles and were notorious skinflints. The life by his pupil and disappointed executor J. T. Smith (1766–1833),
Nollekens and his Times
(1828), gives a remarkable picture of their meanness and has been described by Rupert Gunnis (
Dictionary of British Sculptors
1660–1851, 1953) as probably ‘the most candid, pitiless and uncomplimentary biography in the English language’.
Non-Objective art
.
.
General term for all abstract art that does not depend on the appearance of the visual world as a starting-point, relying solely on the relations between forms and colours. The term seems to have been first used by
Rodchenko
(who used it mainly for geometrical abstraction), but it was given currency in the West by
Kandinsky
in his book
Über das Geistige in der Kunst
(Concerning the Spiritual in Art) in 1912. Malevich wrote a treatise entitled
Die Gegenstandlöse Welt
, published by the
Bauhaus
in 1927 (translated as
The Non-Objective World
, 1959).
Rodchenko
(who used it mainly for geometrical abstraction), but it was given currency in the West by
Kandinsky
in his book
Über das Geistige in der Kunst
(Concerning the Spiritual in Art) in 1912. Malevich wrote a treatise entitled
Die Gegenstandlöse Welt
, published by the
Bauhaus
in 1927 (translated as
The Non-Objective World
, 1959).
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