(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 :. | Little Girl with a Patterned Balloon | A Ram | Sarkis Pouring Wine | A Doe Walking | A Nurse with a Baby |
Related Artists:
Earle Grantham Teale
American , 1886-1919
Philip Hermogenes Calderon
English genre, portraits, domestic and historical scenes Painter, 1833-1898 English painter of Spanish and French descent. His father, at one time a Roman Catholic priest, was Professor of Spanish Literature at King's College, London. Calderon studied at James M. Leigh's school in London in 1850, then in Paris at the studio of Fran?ois-Edouard Picot. He lived near by in Montmartre, sharing a room with fellow art student Henry Stacy Marks. He exhibited his first Royal Academy painting, By the Waters of Babylon (London, Tate), in 1853 and thereafter became a regular exhibitor until 1897. He first made his name with Broken Vows (London, Tate), exhibited in 1857. The painting shows a woman overhearing through a garden fence her lover betraying her and was painted in the detailed, clean-cut style associated with the Pre-Raphaelites.
Wladyslaw slewinski
(1854-1918) was a Polish painter. He was a student of Gauguin's and a leading artist of the Young Poland movement. Władysław Ślewiski was a Polish painter. He administered his estate in Poland before traveling to Paris in 1888. Once there he studied at the Academie Colarossi where he met Gauguin. The impression this encounter made on him and Gauguin's encouragement prompted Slewinski to dedicate himself to art. He submitted to Gauguin's artistic and personal influence, spending time with him in Paris and, from 1889, in Pont-Aven and Le Pouldu in Brittany. Seascapes painted during this period include Cliffs in Brittany. In 1891 Gauguin painted a portrait of Slewinski and presented it to him. During this period Slewinski exhibited in Paris, with some success, both at the Salon des Independents in 1895 and 1896 and the Galerie Georges Thomas in 1897 and 1898.