Swiss-born French Art Nouveau Designer, 1845-1917 Born Eugene Samuel Grasset in Lausanne, Switzerland, his birth year is sometimes stated as 1841. He was raised in an artistic environment as the son of a cabinet designer maker and sculptor. He studied drawing under Francois-Louis David Bocion (1828-1890) and in 1861 went to Zurich to study architecture. After completing his education, he visited Egypt, an experience that would later be reflected in a number of his poster designs. He became an admirer of Japanese art which too influenced some of his creative designs. Between 1869 and 1870, Grasset worked as a painter and sculptor in Lausanne but moved to Paris in 1871 where he designed furniture fabrics and tapestries as well as ceramics and jewelry. His fine art decorative pieces were crafted from ivory, gold and other precious materials in unique combinations and his creations are considered a cornerstone of Art Nouveau motifs and patterns. Grasset poster for Mark Twain Joan of ArcIn 1877 Eugene Grasset turned to graphic design, producing income-generating products such as postcards and eventually postage stamps for both France and Switzerland. However, it was poster art that quickly became his forte. Some of his works became part of the Maitres de l Affiche including his lithograph, Jeanne d Arc Sarah Bernhardt. In 1890, he designed the Semeuse logo used by the dictionary publishers, Editions Larousse. With the growing popularity of French posters in the United States, Grasset was soon contacted by several American companies. In the 1880s, he did his first American commission and more success led to his cover design for the 1892 Christmas issue of Harper Magazine. In 1894 Grasset created The Wooly Horse and The Sun of Austerlitz for The Century Magazine to help advertise their serialized story on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Wooly Horse image proved so popular that Louis Comfort Tiffany recreated it in stained glass. Grasset work for U.S. institutions helped pave the way for Art Nouveau to dominate American art. At the end of the 19th century, Grasset was hired to teach design at Ecole Guerin and Ecole Estienne in Paris. Among his students were Maurice Pillard Verneuil, Augusto Giacometti, Paul Berthon and Otto Ernst Schmidt. At the Universal Exhibition of 1900 in Paris, the G. Peignot et Fils typefoundry, introduced the Grasset typeface, an Italic design Eugene Grasset created in 1898 for use on some of his posters.  Related Paintings of Eugene Grasset :. | Boys bathing on a summer evening at Skagen Beach | Stitching the Standard | Turkish Idlers. | The Winged Man or the Fallen Angel | Johannes Vermeer (mk30) |
Related Artists:
Oehme, Ernst Ferdinand
German, 1797-1855
Abraham van den Tempel
(1622?C1672) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He probably learned painting from his father, also a painter, but who died when he was still quite young, in 1636. That is the same year that he moved to Amsterdam, where he stayed until 1647, whereupon he moved to Leiden. According to Houbraken he was the son of a Mennonite preacher in Leeuwarden who was a respected art teacher. His father was Lambert Jacobsz (or Jacobszoon), who had taught Govert Flinck and Jacob Adriaensz Backer in their youth, both of whom were artists from Mennonite families. Abraham took the name Tempel because when he studied in Leiden, he lived in a house there with a relief of a Tempel in the keystone. He became a pupil of Jacob Backer, and studied mathematics at Leiden University. He met with great success with the Leiden city council, earning several generous commissions, including a series of three large allegorical paintings on the cloth industry of Leiden for the Cloth Hall which still hang in their original place today in the Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal. Sir William Davidson of Curriehill, Conservator of the Cloth Staple at Veere (with his son Charles), 1664.He became master of the Guild of St. Luke in 1657 and in 1659 he was chartermaster. In 1660 he returned to Amsterdam. His pupils were Frans van Mieris the Elder, Carel de Moor, Michiel van Musscher, Ary de Vois, and Isaac Paling
Gerard Dou
Leiden 1613-1675 was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly-polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe l'oeil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. His first instructor in drawing and design was Bartholomew Dolendo, an engraver; and he afterwards learned the art of glass-painting under Peter Kouwhoorn. At the age of 15 he became a pupil of Rembrandt, with whom he continued for three years. From the great master of the Dutch school he acquired his skill in coloring, and in the more subtle effects of chiaroscuro; and the style of Rembrandt is reflected in several of his earlier pictures, notably in a portrait of himself at the age of 22, in the Bridge-water House gallery, and in the "Blind Tobit going to meet his Son", at Wardour Castle. At a comparatively early point in his career, however, he had formed a manner of his own distinct from, and indeed in some respects antagonistic to, that of his master. Gifted with unusual clearness of vision and precision of manipulation, he cultivated a minute and elaborate style of treatment; and probably few painters ever spent more time and pains on all the details of their pictures down to the most trivial. He is said to have spent five days in painting a hand; and his work was so fine that he found it necessary to manufacture his own brushes. Notwithstanding the minuteness of his touch, however, the general effect was harmonious and free from stiffness, and his color was always admirably fresh and transparent. He was fond of representing subjects in lantern or candle light, the effects of which he reproduced with a fidelity and skill which no other master has equaled. He frequently painted by the aid of a concave mirror, and to obtain exactness looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. His practice as a portrait painter, which was at first considerable, gradually declined, sitters being unwilling to give him the time that he deemed necessary. His pictures were always small in size, and represented chiefly subjects in still life. Upwards of 200 are attributed to him, and specimens are to be found in most of the great public collections of Europe. His chef-d'oeuvre is generally considered to be The dropsical woman, 1663, and The Dutch Housewife, 1650, both in the Louvre. The Evening School, in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, is the best example of the candlelight scenes in which he excelled. In the National Gallery, London, favorable specimens are to be seen in the Poulterer's Shop,