abstract art
A term which can generally be applied to any non-representational art (most decorative art, for example), but which is more specifically used, from the early 20th century onwards, to describe ...
Abstraction-Création
An association of abstract painters and sculptors formed in Paris in February 1931, a successor to the short-lived Cercle et Carré. It was open to artists of all nationalities and its organization ...
Aimé Maeght
(1906–81) and(1905–77)French dealers, collectors, patrons, and publishers, husband and wife. They married in 1928 and in 1937 opened the Galerie Arte in Cannes. At the end of the Second World War ...
Alexei von Jawlensky
(b Torzhok, 13 [25] Mar. 1864; d Wiesbaden, 15 Mar. 1941).Russian Expressionist painter, active mainly in Germany. Originally he was an army officer, but in 1906 he resigned his commission and moved ...
Alfred Kubin
(b Leitmeritz [now Litomerice], Bohemia, 10 Apr. 1877; d Schloss Zwickledt, nr. Wernstein, 20 Aug. 1959).Austrian draughtsman, illustrator, painter, and writer. From 1906 he lived mainly at Zwickledt ...
Allied Artists' Association
Formed in London in 1908, it was a group of progressive, pro-French artists which was led by Walter Sickert. Their models were Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh and their first exhibition was held in ...
Antoine Pevsner
(b ?Orel, 18 Jan. 1884; d Paris, 12 Apr. 1962).Russian-born sculptor and painter who became a French citizen in 1930. He was the elder brother of Naum Gabo and like him one of the pioneers and chief ...
Armory Show
An art exhibition (officially entitled the International Exhibition of Modern Art) held in New York, 17 February–15 March 1913, at the Armory of the National Guard's Sixty-Ninth Regiment, Lexington ...
Art Informel
A term devised by the French critic Michel Tapié in 1952. A Parisian counterpart of Abstract Expressionism, Art Informel emphasized intuition and spontaneity over the Cubist tradition which had ...
art Nouveau
A style of decorative art, architecture, and design prominent in western Europe and the US from about 1890 until the First World War and characterized by intricate linear designs and flowing curves ...
Arthur Dove
(b Canandaigua, NY, 2 Aug. 1880; d Huntington, Long Island, NY, 23 Nov. 1946).American painter, a pioneer of abstract art. For most of his career he earned his living as a commercial illustrator and ...
August Macke
(b Meschede, Westphalia, 3 Jan. 1887; d nr. Perthes-les-Hurlus, Champagne, 26 Sept. 1914).German Expressionist painter. His training included a period studying with Corinth in Berlin. Between 1907 ...
avant-garde
(Fr. ‘vanguard’).Term used in the arts to denote those who make a radical departure from tradition. In 20th‐cent. mus., Stockhausen may be regarded as avant‐garde, but not Shostakovich.
Bauhaus
A school of applied arts established by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919 and noted for its refined functionalist approach to architecture and industrial design. The socialist principles on which ...
biomorphic
A term applied to forms in abstract art that derive from or suggest organic (rather than geometric) shapes, as, for example, in the sculpture of Henry Moore.
Canadian art
1. PaintingCanada's art reflects divided roots in the Catholic French and Puritan British colonies. La France apportant la foi aux Hurons de la Nouvelle France (c.1670; Quebec, Ursuline Monastery) ...
Cecil Collins
(1908–89)British painter of visionary subjects, born in Plymouth. He studied at Plymouth School of Art, 1923–7, and at the Royal College of Art, 1927–31. In 1936 he took part in the International ...
Cercle et Carré
(French, ‘Circle and Square’)A discussion and exhibition society for Constructivist artists formed in Paris in 1929 by the critic Michel Seuphor and the painter Joaquin Torres-Garcia. A journal of ...
Claude Monet
(1840–1926)French Impressionist painter. He is regarded as the archetypal Impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it is fitting ...
colour
Created by the reactions of the human eye to certain properties possessed by an object when it reflects or emits light. More technically, colour is determined by ocular interpretation of ...
