(born Niko Pirosmanashvili; May 5, 1862-1918) was a Georgian primitivist painter. Pirosmani was born in the Georgian village of Mirzaani to a pleasant family in the Kakheti province. His family owned a small vineyard. He was later orphaned and put in the care of his two elder sisters. He moved with them to Tbilisi in 1870. In 1872 he worked as a servant for wealthy families and learned to read and write Russian and Georgian. In 1876 he returned to Mirzaani and worked as a herdsman. Pirosmani gradually taught himself to paint. One of his specialties was painting directly into black oilcloth. In 1882 he opened a workshop in Tbilisi which was unsuccessful. In 1890 he worked as a railroad conductor, and in 1895 worked creating signboards. In 1893 he co-founded a dairy farm in Tbilisi which he left in 1901. Throughout his life Pirosmani, who was always poor, was willing to take up ordinary jobs including housepainting and whitewashing buildings. Although his paintings had some local popularity (about 200 survive) his relationship with professional artists remained uneasy; making a living was always more important to him than abstract aesthetics.  Related Paintings of Niko Pirosmanashvili :. | Sarkis Pouring Wine | Kakhetian Epos - Alasan Valley | A Doe Walking | Festival on the Tzkhenis-tzkaly River | Healer on a Donkey |
Related Artists:
GELDER, Aert de
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1645-1727
Antoine Sallaert
(1585-1650) was a Flemish Baroque painter. According to Houbraken his work survived in Brussels, where he lived and died. He was sorry he could not find more data on this artist. According to the RKD he was registered in the Brussels Guild of Saint Luke as a master in 1613 and used the monograms ASall f and AS entwined.
Bierstadt, Albert
The landscape painter Bierstadt joined a surveying expedition to the western United States in 1858 after studying painting in Germany.