Look up painter in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Painter may refer to:

• Occupations:
  • Creative artist in the medium of painting
  • House painter and decorator, a tradesman responsible for the painting and decorating of buildings
• Painter, Virginia, Virginia, United States
• Painter (rope), a rope that is attached to the bow of a boat and used for tying up or for towing
• Corel Painter, software
• The Painter, 1981 album by KC and the Sunshine Band
• Sweatt v. Painter, legal case
• Painter, or Cougar, mammal
• Painter (band), a Canadian rock band

People[link]

• Curtis Painter (born 1985), American footballer
• George Painter (1914-2005), British author and biographer of Marcel Proust
• Ian Painter (born 1964), English footballer
• Joe Painter (born 1965), British geographer & academic
• John Painter (cricketer) (1856-1900), English cricketer
• John Painter (supercentenarian) (1888–2001), American soldier & long survivor
• John Mark Painter (born 1967), American musician
• Kevin Painter (born 1967), British darts player
• Lance Painter (born 1967), British baseball coach
• Marcos Painter (born 1986), English footballer
• Matt Painter (born 1970), American basketball coach
• Robbie Painter (born 1971), English footballer
• Roy Painter (born c. 1930), British politician
• Sidney Painter (1902–1960), American medievalist
• Theophilus Painter (1889–1969), American zoologist
• William Painter (author) (c. 1540–1594), English author
• William Painter (inventor) (1838–1906), American

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Anne Madden, painter, was born in London, in 1932 to an Irish father and an Anglo-Chilean mother.

Early career[link]

Madden is well known in both Ireland and France where she has divided her time for the past forty years. Of Irish and Anglo-Chilean origin, Anne Madden spent her first years in Chile. Her parents returned to Europe when she was four years of age to live in Ireland and in London, where she subsequently attended the Chelsea School of Arts and Crafts. During this period she was impressed by an important exhibition of American painting at the Royal Academy, particularly by the works of Sam Francis and Jean-Paul Riopelle. It was Abstract Expressionism that opened up new possibilities of experimentation for her at that time. She later met these artists in Paris along with Joan Mitchell and others with whom she exchanged works. The techniques employed included palette knife and paint flows and soon involved the use of multiple canvases as a means of creating pictorial interactions.

She began to exhibit in group shows in London and Dublin from the age of 18. The Burren and her love of lonely places informed these early paintings. Her work was then interrupted for three years by a series of operations on her spine. During that time she met the painter Louis le Brocquy who was then working in London. They married in 1958 and set up house and studio in the south of France, where two sons were born to them, Alexis and Pierre.

1960s–present[link]

the mid sixties on, their comparatively reclusive life in Carros village was changed by the opening of the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul, where over the years they were constantly meeting painters, sculptors, writers, poets, and musicians forming friendships resumed in Paris and elsewhere. In 1965 Anne Madden represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale, before regularly exhibiting in that city. From the 1960s she began to paint a series of abstract landscapes influenced by her time as a young girl in the west of Ireland, near the Burren in Co. Clare. Between 1970 and 1979 Madden painted a large series of vertical works, their size determined by her height and reach. Reflecting on life and death, the works derived from megaliths and other prehistoric monuments. In the 1980s Madden stopped painting for a time and devoted herself to drawing, this resulted in a series of large works in graphite and oil paint on paper entitled Openings, which formed the exhibition of her work at the Fondation Maeght, in 1983 and represented her in ROSC '84. Madden then returned to painting on canvas and has continued to develop and produce a large body of work. She returned to painting on canvas and developed a large body of work which was included in a retrospective, sponsored by the Arts Council in 1991, and exhibited in the R.H.A. Gallagher Galleries, Dublin. She has exhibited widely in both solo and group exhibitions and her work is represented in many public collections.

Her book Louis le Brocquy, Seeing His Way was published in 1993 (Gill & Macmillan). A year later she received an important commission from Dr. Ronald Tallon, architect of the O'Reilly Hall at U.C.D., to paint one of the ten large paintings displayed within the Aula Maxima. In 1999 the hillside village of Carros in the south of France commissioned Anne Madden to paint a large vaulted ceiling painting measuring 900 × 600 cm for its medieval castle, which opened last year as an international contemporary art centre. The artist produced Empyrius in her nearby studio before it was mounted in situ as a permanent installation. The opening will be the occasion of the unveiling of a permanent room dedicated to the artist's work in recognition of her involvement in the artistic life of the region.

In 2000, Madden returned to live and work in Dublin. She is a member of Aosdána. In 2005 she was conferred with LL.D., h.c., University College, Dublin, 1988. Her husband Louis died on 25 April 2012.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Website

Claude Monet
Claude Monet, photo by Nadar, 1899.
Birth name	Oscar-Claude Monet
Born	(1840-11-14)14 November 1840 Paris, France
Died	5 December 1926(1926-12-05) (aged 86) Giverny, France
Nationality	French
Field	Painter
Movement	Impressionism
Works	Impression, Sunrise Rouen Cathedral series London Parliament series Water Lilies Haystacks Poplars
Patrons	Gustave Caillebotte, Ernest Hoschedé, Georges Clemenceau
Influenced by	Eugène Boudin, Johan Jongkind, Gustave Courbet

Claude Monet (French pronunciation: [klod mɔnɛ/mɔne]) (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting.^[1][2] The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant).

Early life[link]

Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the 5th floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.^[3] He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet, both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptized in the local parish church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as Oscar-Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar.^[3][4] In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the family grocery business, but Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer.

On 1 April 1851, Monet entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts. Locals knew him well for his charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy in about 1856/1857, he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting.^[5] Both received the influence of Johan Barthold Jongkind.

On 28 January 1857, his mother died. At the age of sixteen, he left school and went to live with his widowed childless aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre.

Paris[link]

On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt (1868), an early example of plein-air impressionism, in which a gestural and suggestive use of oil paint was presented as a finished work of art.

When Monet traveled to Paris to visit the Louvre, he witnessed painters copying from the old masters. Having brought his paints and other tools with him, he would instead go and sit by a window and paint what he saw.^{[citation needed]} Monet was in Paris for several years and met other young painters who would become friends and fellow impressionists; among them was Édouard Manet.

In June 1861, Monet joined the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry in Algeria for a seven-year commitment, but, two years later, after he had contracted typhoid fever, his aunt intervened to get him out of the army if he agreed to complete an art course at an art school. It is possible that the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind, whom Monet knew, may have prompted his aunt on this matter. Disillusioned with the traditional art taught at art schools, in 1862 Monet became a student of Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley. Together they shared new approaches to art, painting the effects of light en plein air with broken color and rapid brushstrokes, in what later came to be known as Impressionism.

Monet's Camille or The Woman in the Green Dress (La femme à la robe verte), painted in 1866, brought him recognition and was one of many works featuring his future wife, Camille Doncieux; she was the model for the figures in Women in the Garden of the following year, as well as for On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt, 1868, pictured here. Shortly thereafter, Camille became pregnant and gave birth to their first child, Jean.

Franco-Prussian War, Impressionism, and Argenteuil[link]

Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant) (1872).

Claude Monet Reading (1872) by Renoir

After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870), Monet took refuge in England in September 1870,^[6] where he studied the works of John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner, both of whose landscapes would serve to inspire Monet's innovations in the study of color. In the spring of 1871, Monet's works were refused authorisation for inclusion in the Royal Academy exhibition.^[7]

In May 1871, he left London to live in Zaandam, in the Netherlands,^[7] where he made twenty-five paintings (and the police suspected him of revolutionary activities).^[8] He also paid a first visit to nearby Amsterdam. In October or November 1871, he returned to France. Monet lived from December 1871 to 1878 at Argenteuil, a village on the right bank of the Seine river near Paris, and a popular Sunday-outing destination for Parisians, where he painted some of his best known works. In 1874, he briefly returned to Holland.^[9]

In 1872, he painted Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant) depicting a Le Havre port landscape. It hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 and is now displayed in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris. From the painting's title, art critic Louis Leroy coined the term "Impressionism", which he intended as disparagement but which the Impressionists appropriated for themselves.^[10] Also in this exhibition was a painting titled Boulevard des Capucines, a painting of the boulevard done from the photographer Nadar's apartment at no. 35. There were, however, two paintings by Monet of the boulevard: one is now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the other in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. It has never become clear which painting appeared in the groundbreaking 1874 exhibition, though more recently the Moscow picture has been favoured.^[11]

Monet and Camille Doncieux had married just before the war (28 June 1870)^[7] and, after their excursion to London and Zaandam, they had moved to Argenteuil, in December 1871. It was during this time that Monet painted various works of modern life. Camille became ill in 1876. They had a second son, Michel, on 17 March 1878, (Jean was born in 1867). This second child weakened her already fading health. In that same year, he moved to the village of Vétheuil. On 5 September 1879, Camille Monet died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-two; Monet painted her on her death bed.^[12][13]

Early paintings[link]

• 

  View At Rouelles, Le Havre 1858, Private collection.

• 

  Claude Monet - Mouth of the Seine, 1865, The Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena, CA

• 

  The Woman in the Green Dress, Camille Doncieux, 1866, Kunsthalle Bremen.

• 

  Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1865–1866, The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.

• 

  Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, (right section), with Gustave Courbet, 1865–1866, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

• 

  Flowering Garden at Sainte-Adresse, 1866, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

• 

  Women in a Garden, 1866–1867, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

• 

  Woman in a Garden, 1867, Hermitage, St. Petersburg

• 

  Jardin à Sainte-Adresse, 1867, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

• 

  The Luncheon, 1868, Städel Museum, Frankfurt

• 

  Pheasant, 1869. Private collection.

• 

  The Magpie, 1868–1869. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

• 

  Seine Basin with Argenteuil, 1872, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

• 

  Jean Monet on his hobby horse, 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

• 

  Camille Monet on a Garden Bench, 1873, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

• 

  The Artist's house at Argenteuil, 1873, The Art Institute of Chicago

• 

  Poppies Blooming, 1873, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

• 

  Train in the Snow, 1875, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.

• 

  Madame Monet in a Japanese Costume, 1875, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

• 

  Woman with a Parasol, (Camille and Jean Monet), 1875, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

• 

  Camille Monet at her tapestry loom, 1875, Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA

• 

  Argenteuil, 1875, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris.

• 

  The Boat Studio, 1876, Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA

• 

  Saint Lazare Train Station, Paris, 1877, The Art Institute of Chicago

• 

  Rue Montorgueil, 1878, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

• 

  Vétheuil in the Fog, 1879, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.

• 

  Camille Monet on her deathbed, 1879, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

• 

  Street in Vétheuil in Winter, 1879, Gothenburg Museum of Art

• 

  Lavacourt: Sunshine and Snow, 1879–1880 National Gallery, London

Later life[link]

Claude Monet, in his garden, by Étienne Clémentel, c. 1917

After several difficult months following the death of Camille, a grief-stricken Monet (resolving never to be mired in poverty again) began in earnest to create some of his best paintings of the 19th century. During the early 1880s, Monet painted several groups of landscapes and seascapes in what he considered to be campaigns to document the French countryside. His extensive campaigns evolved into his series' paintings.

Camille Monet had become ill with tuberculosis in 1876. Pregnant with her second child she gave birth to Michel Monet in March 1878. In 1878 the Monets temporarily moved into the home of Ernest Hoschedé, (1837–1891), a wealthy department store owner and patron of the arts. Both families then shared a house in Vétheuil during the summer. After her husband (Ernest Hoschedé) became bankrupt, and left in 1878 for Belgium, and after the death of Camille Monet in September 1879, and while Monet continued to live in the house in Vétheuil; Alice Hoschedé helped Monet to raise his two sons, Jean and Michel, by taking them to Paris to live alongside her own six children.^[14] They were Blanche Hoschedé Monet, (she eventually married Jean Monet), Germaine, Suzanne Hoschedé, Marthe, Jean-Pierre, and Jacques. In the spring of 1880, Alice Hoschedé and all the children left Paris and rejoined Monet still living in the house in Vétheuil.^[15] In 1881, all of them moved to Poissy, which Monet hated. In April 1883, looking out the window of the little train between Vernon and Gasny, he discovered Giverny.^[16][17][18] They then moved to Vernon, then to a house in Giverny in Normandy, where he planted a large garden and where he painted for much of the rest of his life. Following the death of her estranged husband, Alice Hoschedé married Claude Monet in 1892.^[5]

Giverny[link]

Port-Goulphar, Belle Île, 1887, Art Gallery of New South Wales

Charing Cross Bridge, 1899, Collection Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

At the beginning of May 1883, Monet and his large family rented a house and 2 acres (8,100 m²) from a local landowner. The house was situated near the main road between the towns of Vernon and Gasny at Giverny. There was a barn that doubled as a painting studio, orchards and a small garden. The house was close enough to the local schools for the children to attend and the surrounding landscape offered many suitable motifs for Monet's work. The family worked and built up the gardens and Monet's fortunes began to change for the better as his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel had increasing success in selling his paintings. By November 1890, Monet was prosperous enough to buy the house, the surrounding buildings and the land for his gardens. During the 1890s, Monet built a greenhouse and a second studio, a spacious building well lit with skylights. Beginning in the 1880s and 1890s through the end of his life in 1926, Monet worked on "series" paintings, in which a subject was depicted in varying light and weather conditions. His first series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. He later produced several series of paintings including: Rouen Cathedral, Poplars, the Parliament, Mornings on the Seine, and the Water Lilies that were painted on his property at Giverny.

Monet was fond of painting controlled nature: his own gardens in Giverny, with its water lilies, pond, and bridge. He also painted up and down the banks of the Seine, producing paintings such as Break-up of the ice on the Seine. He wrote daily instructions to his gardener, precise designs and layouts for plantings, and invoices for his floral purchases and his collection of botany books. As Monet's wealth grew, his garden evolved. He remained its architect, even after he hired seven gardeners.^[19]

Between 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, such as Bordighera. He painted an important series of paintings in Venice, Italy, and in London he painted two important series—views of Parliament and views of Charing Cross Bridge. His second wife, Alice, died in 1911 and his oldest son Jean, who had married Alice's daughter Blanche, Monet's particular favourite, died in 1914.^[5] After his wife died, Blanche looked after and cared for him. It was during this time that Monet began to develop the first signs of cataracts.^[20]

During World War I, in which his younger son Michel served and his friend and admirer Clemenceau led the French nation, Monet painted a series of weeping willow trees as homage to the French fallen soldiers. In 1923, he underwent two operations to remove his cataracts: the paintings done while the cataracts affected his vision have a general reddish tone, which is characteristic of the vision of cataract victims. It may also be that after surgery he was able to see certain ultraviolet wavelengths of light that are normally excluded by the lens of the eye; this may have had an effect on the colors he perceived. After his operations he even repainted some of these paintings, with bluer water lilies than before.^[21]

Later paintings[link]

• 

  The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil, 1880, National Gallery of Art

• 

  La maison du pêcheur à Varengeville (The Fisherman's house at Varengeville), 1882, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam

• 

  Rock Arch West of Etretat (The Manneport), 1883, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• 

  The Cliffs at Etretat, 1885, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

• 

  Still-Life with Anemones, 1885

• 

  Claude Monet - Bordighera, 1884, The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

• 

  Study of a Figure Outdoors: Woman with a Parasol, facing left, 1886. The pictured woman is Suzanne Hoschedé (c. 1864-1899), eldest daughter of Alice Hoschedé, second wife of Claude Monet, Musée d'Orsay.

• 

  The Port Coton Pyramids, 1886

• 

  Oat and Poppy Field, Giverny, 1890

• 

  Haystacks, (sunset), 1890–1891, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

• 

  Poplars, (autumn), 1891, Philadelphia Museum of Art

• The four trees--Claude Monet--1891--oil on canvas--82 x 81.5 cm--the Metropolitan Museum of Art--four poplars on the banks of the Epte River near Giverny.jpg

  Four Poplars on the Banks of the Epte River near Giverny, 1891, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• 

  Rouen Cathedral, Façade (sunset), 1892–1894, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

• 

  The Seine at Giverny, 1897, National Gallery of Art

• 

  Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies, 1899, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• 

  Poplars on the Epte, 1900, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

• 

  The Garden in Flower, 1900

• 

  Garden Path, 1902, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere

• 

  Houses of Parliament, London, c. 1904, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

• 

  Water Lilies, 1906, Art Institute of Chicago

• 

  Water Lilies, 1907, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo

• 

  Palace From Mula, Venice, 1908, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

• 

  The Grand Canal, Venice 1908, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

• 

  Water Lilies, 1914–1917, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio

• 

  Nympheas, 1915, Neue Pinakothek, Munich

• 

  Nympheas, 1915, Musée Marmottan Monet

• 

  White and yellow Water Lilies, (1915 -1917), Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland

• 

  Nympheas, c. 1916, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

• 

  Water Lilies, 1916, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

• 

  Water Lilies and Reflections of a Willow (1916–19), Musée Marmottan Monet

• 

  Water-Lily Pond and Weeping Willow, 1916–1919

• 

  Water Lilies, 1917–1919, Honolulu Museum of Art

• 

  Weeping Willow, 1918–1919

• 

  Weeping Willow, 1918–1919, Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth

• 

  Water Lilies, 1919, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

• 

  Sea-Roses (Yellow Nirwana), 1920, The National Gallery, London

• 

  Water-Lily Pond, c. 1915–1926, Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan

• 

  The Rose-Way in Giverny, 1920–1922, Musée Marmottan Monet

Death[link]

Water Lilies, 1920–1926, Musée de l'Orangerie

Monet died of lung cancer on 5 December 1926 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny church cemetery.^[22] Monet had insisted that the occasion be simple; thus only about fifty people attended the ceremony.^[23]

His home, garden and waterlily pond were bequeathed by his son Michel, his only heir, to the French Academy of Fine Arts (part of the Institut de France) in 1966. Through the Fondation Claude Monet, the house and gardens were opened for visit in 1980, following restoration.^[24] In addition to souvenirs of Monet and other objects of his life, the house contains his collection of Japanese woodcut prints. The house is one of the two main attractions of Giverny, which hosts tourists from all over the world.

Posthumous sales[link]

Monet, right, in his garden at Giverny, 1922.

In 2004, London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog (Londres, le Parlement, trouée de soleil dans le brouillard) (1904), sold for US$20.1 million.^[25] In 2006, the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society published a paper providing evidence that these were painted in situ at St Thomas' Hospital over the river Thames.^[26]

Falaises près de Dieppe (Cliffs near Dieppe) has been stolen on two separate occasions. Once in 1998 (in which the museum's curator was convicted of the theft and jailed for five years and two months along with two accomplices) and most recently in August 2007.^[27] It was recovered in June 2008.^[28]

Monet's Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil, an 1873 painting of a railway bridge spanning the Seine near Paris, was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder for a record $ 41.4 million at Christie's auction in New York on 6 May 2008. The previous record for his painting stood at $ 36.5 million.^[29] Just a few weeks later, Le bassin aux nymphéas (from the water lilies series) sold at Christie's 24 June 2008 auction in London, lot 19,^[30] for £36,500,000 ($71,892,376.34) (hammer price) or £40,921,250 ($80,451,178) with fees, nearly doubling the record for the artist^[31] and representing one of the top 20 highest prices paid for a painting at the time.

See also[link]

• Étretat
• History of painting
• List of works by Claude Monet
• Snow at Argenteuil
• Western painting

References[link]

Further reading

• Howard, Michael The Treasures of Monet. (Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, 2007).
• Kendall, Richard Monet by Himself, (Macdonald & Co 1989, updated Time Warner Books 2004), ISBN 0-316-72801-2
• Tucker, Paul Hayes, Monet in the '90s. (Museum of Fine Arts in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1989).
• Tucker, Paul Hayes Claude Monet: Life and Art Amilcare Pizzi, Italy 1995 ISBN 0-300-06298-2
• Tucker, Paul Hayes, Monet in the 20th Century. (Royal Academy of Arts, London, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Yale University press. 1998).

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Claude Monet

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Claude Monet

• Claude Monet at the Museum of Modern Art
• Claude Monet by himself, intermonet.com
• Claude Monet paintings, media & interactive timeline, mootnotes.com
• Claude Monet: life and paintings
• Comparison of reproductions of Monet, kasrl.org
• Monet at Giverny
• Photos of Monet's grave
• The Unknown Monet exhibition – view sketchbooks, clarkart.edu
• Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies.
• Works by or about Claude Monet in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Claude Monet Works

v t e Claude Monet Works List of works by Claude Monet · Women in the Garden · La Grenouillère · The Magpie  · Impression, Sunrise · The Reader  · Beach in Pourville · Snow at Argenteuil · Stormy Sea in Étretat Painting series Poplars · Haystacks · London Parliament · Rouen Cathedral · Water Lilies Movement Impressionism People Camille Doncieux (first wife) · Alice Hoschedé (second wife) · Suzanne Hoschedé (step-daughter) · Blanche Hoschedé Monet (step-daughter and daughter-in law) · Marthe Hoschedé (step-daughter) · Jean Monet (son b.1867) · Michel Monet (son b.1878) · Theodore Earl Butler (son-in law who married Monet's step-daughters, Suzanne and Marthe) · Jacques-François Ochard (teacher) · Eugène Boudin (teacher) · Ernest Hoschedé (patron) · Paul Durand-Ruel (dealer) Places Giverny · Musée de l'Orangerie · Musée d'Orsay · Musée Marmottan Monet

v t e Impressionism Originators Frédéric Bazille Eugène Boudin Gustave Caillebotte Mary Cassatt Paul Cézanne Edgar Degas Armand Guillaumin Édouard Manet Claude Monet Berthe Morisot Camille Pissarro Pierre-Auguste Renoir Jules Ernest Renoux Alfred Sisley Patrons Gustave Caillebotte Henry O. Havemeyer Ernest Hoschedé Dealers Paul Durand-Ruel Georges Petit Ambroise Vollard American Artists William Merritt Chase Frederick Carl Frieseke Childe Hassam Willard Metcalf Lilla Cabot Perry Theodore Robinson John Henry Twachtman J. Alden Weir Other artists Lovis Corinth Max Liebermann Max Slevogt Konstantin Korovin Valentin Serov Francisco Oller Laura Muntz Lyall Władysław Podkowiński Nazmi Ziya Güran Chafik Charobim Ernest Jean-Marie Millard de Bois Durand Other media Music Literature French Impressionist Cinema See also Decorative Impressionism Post-Impressionism

Robert Norman "Bob" Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter, art instructor, and television host.^[1] He is best known as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, a television program that ran on PBS in the United States.

Personal life[link]

Ross was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, and attended school until the ninth grade.^[2] Raised in Orlando, Florida,^[3] Ross enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at age 18^[2] and was living in Florida early in his military career when the Air Force transferred him to Eielson AFB (in Alaska), where he first saw the snow and mountains that later became recurring themes in his artwork; he developed his quick-painting technique in order to be able to create art for sale in brief daily work breaks.^[4] Having held military positions that required him to be, in his own words, "mean" and "tough," "the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work," Ross decided that if he ever moved on from the military, "it wasn't going to be that way any more," "vowing never to scream again".^[4] Ross discovered after beginning his sideline in painting that he was soon able to earn more from selling his work than from his Air Force position. After leaving the Air Force, he studied with Bill Alexander before becoming famous worldwide with his own television program, The Joy of Painting.^[1]

Ross had a son, Steven, from his first marriage to Lynda Brown. Steven occasionally appeared on The Joy of Painting and is a Bob Ross–certified instructor.^[1] Ross and Lynda's marriage ended in divorce in 1981. Ross married again, this time to Jane. Jane died of cancer in 1993,^[1] and Ross himself suffered from lymphoma in his later years. In early 1994, Ross cancelled The Joy of Painting to continue battling the disease, with his final show airing on May 17, 1994. On July 4, 1995, Ross died at home and was survived by his ex-wife Lynda, his son Steve, a half-brother, and a full brother.^[5][6] He is buried at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Gotha, Florida.^[7]

Ross had a brother Jim, whom he mentioned in passing on his show.^[8]

Television show[link]

Ross was the host of the public television series The Joy of Painting. The show ran from January 11, 1983 to May 17, 1994 and still^[update] appears in reruns in many broadcast areas and countries, including the PBS oriented Create. During each half-hour segment, Ross would instruct viewers in the art of oil painting using a quick-study technique that kept colors to a minimum and broke paintings down into simple steps that virtually anyone could follow. Art critic Mira Schor compared him to another PBS television host, noting that the softness of Ross's voice and the slow pace of his speech was similar to Fred Rogers.^[9]

Ross later founded his own successful line of art supplies and how-to books, and also offered painting classes taught by instructors trained in the "Bob Ross method," building a $15 million business.^[2] In a 1990 interview, Ross mentioned that all his programs were donated free of charge to PBS stations and that his earnings came instead from sales of his 20 books and 100 videotapes (the total to that date), as well as profits from some 150 Bob Ross-ATE teachers and a line of art materials sold through a national supplier.^[4] Ross also mentioned on the show "Towering Glacier" (#2341) that he donated all the paintings made on the show to PBS stations around the country to "help them out."^[10]

Ross also filmed wildlife footage, squirrels in particular, usually from his own garden. Small animals often appeared on his show, even during some of his trickier works, as he would often take in injured or abandoned squirrels and other assorted wildlife and look after them.^[4]

Painting[link]

Ross utilized the wet-on-wet oil painting technique, in which the painter continues adding paint on top of still wet paint rather than waiting a lengthy amount of time to allow each layer of paint to dry. Combining this method with the use of two inch and other types of brushes as well as painting knives allowed Ross to paint trees, water, clouds and mountains in a matter of seconds. Each painting would start with simple strokes that appeared to be nothing more than colored smudges. As he added more and more strokes, the blotches transformed into intricate landscapes.^[11][12] Ross dedicated the first episode of the second season of "The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross" to William Alexander, explaining that "years ago, Bill taught me this fantastic [wet-on-wet] technique, and I feel as though he gave me a precious gift, and I'd like to share that gift with you [the viewer]".^[13]

Ross noted that the landscapes he painted — typically mountains, lakes, snow, and log cabin scenes — were strongly influenced by his years living in Alaska, where he was stationed for the majority of his Air Force career. He repeatedly stated on the show his belief that everyone had inherent artistic talent and could become an accomplished artist given time, practice, and encouragement, and to this end was often fond of saying, "We don't have mistakes here, we just have happy accidents."^[14] Ross was well known for other catchphrases he used while painting as he crafted "happy little trees".^[15] In most episodes of The Joy of Painting, he noted that one of his favorite parts of painting was cleaning the brush, specifically his method of drying off a brush, which he had dipped in odorless thinner, by striking it against the thinner can and easel. He would smile and often laugh aloud as he "beat the devil out of it." He also used a palette which had been lightly sanded down which was necessary to avoid catching the reflections of strong studio lighting. At the end of each episode, Ross was known for saying, "so from all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless my friend."

When asked about his laid-back approach to painting and eternally calm and contented demeanor, he once commented: "I got a letter from somebody here a while back, and they said, 'Bob, everything in your world seems to be happy.' That's for sure. That's why I paint. It's because I can create the kind of world that I want, and I can make this world as happy as I want it. Shoot, if you want bad stuff, watch the news."^[16]

Rivalry with William Alexander[link]

Bob Ross was a student of William Alexander, who hosted the public television series The Magic World of Oil Painting from the early 1970s until 1982. On his show, Alexander highlighted his mastery of the alla prima or wet-on-wet style of oil painting in order to promote his paint supply business, Alexander Art and his painting classes. Ross later became a Bill Alexander instructor. His series, The Joy of Painting, was picked up by many of the PBS stations that carried The Magic World of Oil Painting.^[17]

At the beginning of The Joy of Painting's second season in 1984, Ross dedicated the show to Alexander and Alexander filmed a promo for his former student: "I hand off my mighty brush to a mighty man, and that is Bob Ross."^[13][17] In 1987 someone from Alexander Art told Ross that they could not keep up with the demand generated by the The Joy of Painting and suggested that Ross start his own line of art supplies.^[17] As Bob Ross Incorporated grew into a $15 million a year business Alexander told the New York Times that he felt "betrayed" by his one-time student: "He betrayed me. I invented 'wet on wet.' I trained him and he is copying me -- what bothers me is not just that he betrayed me, but that he thinks he can do it better." ^[18]

In popular culture[link]

This "In popular culture" section may contain minor or trivial references. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture rather than simply listing appearances, and remove trivial references. (May 2012)

In "Derbez en Cuando" and "De Nuez en Cuando", two mexican comedy shows by Eugenio Dervez, who parodied this painter as "Bob Atroz"

Bob Ross was parodied in the Comedy Central program Tosh.0 in an episode where Tosh dressed up as Ross while conducting an interview with an artist from the web.

In 2006 a character loosely based off of Ross was featured in the popular comic based cartoon The Boondocks. In the episode an art teacher, Ross, takes Riley under his wing to help him improve his Graffitti.

Family Guy included a parody of Ross in the beginning of an episode.

An easter egg on homestarrunner.com features Marzipan dressed up as and painting like Ross.

He was also parodied by Benny Hill in a short gag, where his character is surrounded by wildlife and some animals end up attacking him. On a similar gag, parodied Ross is painting, then when he turns back to the camera a lady comes into scene and distracted Ross paints her buttocks in error, then she slaps him in the face.

During the Powerpuff Girls episode "Roughing It Up", Professor Utonium pays homage to Ross while he and the girls are painting in the woods, even using Ross's "happy little trees" catchphrase.

In season 2, episode 3 of Dilbert, "S02E03 - Art", a character sharing many traits of Ross named "Rusty Shanks" is shown demonstrating bizarre takes on abstract art, including painting using ones own head as the brush. The character is quickly hushed off-stage by men in black suits apparently sent as enforcers to collect outstanding debts from Rusty.

See also[link]

• Wet-on-wet

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bob Ross

• Bob Ross Incorporated
• Bob Ross at the Internet Movie Database