In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork. In the aesthetic theories developed in the Italian Renaissance, the highest art was that which allowed the full expression and display of the artist's imagination, unrestricted by any of the practical considerations involved in, say, making and decorating a teapot. It was also considered important that making the artwork did not involve dividing the work between different individuals with specialized skills, as might be necessary with a piece of furniture, for example. Even within the fine arts, there was a hierarchy of genres based on the amount of creative imagination required, with history painting placed higher than still life.
David Hockney is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.
Félicien Victor Joseph Rops was a Belgian artist associated with Symbolism and the Parisian Fin-de Siecle. He was a painter, illustrator, caricaturist and a prolific and innovative print maker, particularly in intaglio. Although not well known to the general public, Rops was greatly respected by his peers and actively pursued and celebrated as an illustrator by the publishers, authors, and poets of his time and provided frontispieces and illustrations for Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Charles Baudelaire, Charles De Coster, Théophile Gautier, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Stéphane Mallarmé, Joséphin Péladan, Paul Verlaine, Voltaire, and many others. He is best known today for his prints and drawings illustrating erotic and occult literature of the period, although he also produced oil paintings including landscapes, seascapes, and occasional genre paintings. Rops is recognized as a pioneer of Belgian comics.
Käthe Kollwitz was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including The Weavers and The Peasant War, depict the effects of poverty, hunger and war on the working class. Despite the realism of her early works, her art is now more closely associated with Expressionism. Kollwitz was the first woman not only to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts but also to receive honorary professor status.
La Calavera Catrina or CatrinaLa Calavera Garbancera is a 1910–1913 zinc etching by the Mexican printmaker, cartoon illustrator and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada. La Catrina has become an icon of the Mexican Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead.
The etching revival was the re-emergence and invigoration of etching as an original form of printmaking during the period approximately from 1850 to 1930. The main centres were France, Britain and the United States, but other countries, such as the Netherlands, also participated. A strong collector's market developed, with the most sought-after artists achieving very high prices. This came to an abrupt end after the 1929 Wall Street crash wrecked what had become a very strong market among collectors, at a time when the typical style of the movement, still based on 19th-century developments, was becoming outdated.
Charles Philipon was a French lithographer, caricaturist and journalist. He was the founder and director of the satirical political journals La Caricature and of Le Charivari
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art history.
Aldo Crommelynck was a Belgian master printmaker who made intaglio prints in collaboration with many important European and American artists of the 20th century.
Ken Kerslake (1930–2007) was a printmaker and professor credited with being "one of a handful of printmaker-educators responsible for the growth of printmaking in the southeast in the years following World War II." Kerslake taught at the University of Florida in Gainesville, which gave him the title of Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus after his retirement.
Dzi Croquettes is a 2009 Brazilian documentary film directed by Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez about the dance and theater group of the same name.
Diane Victor, is a South African artist and print maker, known for her satirical and social commentary of contemporary South African politics.
Stations of the Elevated is a 1981 documentary film by Manfred Kirchheimer about graffiti in New York City. It debuted at the New York Film Festival. It was re-released June 27, 2014, and shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and was re-released throughout the United States in the fall of 2014. Reviews were generally positive.
Manfred Kirchheimer is a documentary film maker and professor of film at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He previously taught at NYIT. He was born in Saarbrücken, Germany, and his family moved to New York City in 1936 to escape Nazi Germany. After receiving a B.A. from the City College of New York in 1952, he worked primarily as a film editor and he also began making his own films. A major theme in many of his documentaries is urban life. His most notable documentaries include: Stations of the Elevated, We Were So Beloved, Tall: The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan, and Art Is... The Permanent Revolution.
We Were So Beloved is a 1985 documentary film by Manfred Kirchheimer about Jewish survivors of the Holocaust living in Washington Heights, Manhattan in New York City. It consists of interviews with family and friends interspersed with written and spoken quotes from Mein Kampf to remind the viewer of the evil that had preceded. The film received mixed reviews.
Tall: The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan is a 2006 documentary film by Manfred Kirchheimer that attempts to tell the story of how Louis Sullivan designed skyscrapers. The film begins by placing the viewer in late 19th century Chicago just after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The film takes the viewer through the early development of skyscrapers with archival photos, music and narration. It ends by focusing on the decline of Louis Sullivan. The documentary met with mixed reviews that generally liked the artistry of the documentary but found the storytelling lacking.
Sigmund Abeles is an American figurative artist and art educator. His work embodies the "expressive and psychological aspects of the human figure; an art focused on the life cycle." He taught art for 27 years at various institutions including Swain School of Design, Wellesley College, Boston University, the National Academy, and the Art Students League of New York. Currently Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, Abeles works full-time in his NYC and upstate NY studios. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards for printmaking, drawing, painting, and sculpture, including Pastel Society of America Hall of Fame honoree in 2004 and most recently the Artists' Fellowship 2017 Benjamin West Clinedinst Medal. His work can be found in many public institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Abeles was one of three artists featured in Manfred Kirchheimer's 2012 feature-length independent film Art Is... The Permanent Revolution, on the history of the art of protest in prints.
Jacki Parry RSA is an Australian born artist, printmaker, papermaker, former lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art and a founding member of the Glasgow Print Studio and the Paper Workshop, Glasgow.
The Prisons is a series of 16 prints by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi in the 18th century. They depict enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines.
Jane Furst is a contemporary English artist.
