Biographical Article (8)
Benezit Dictionary of Artists (5)
Eighteenth-Century Art (1)
Latin American/Caribbean Art (1)
Open Section Nineteenth-Century Art (3)
Oceanic/Australian Art (1)
Twentieth-Century Art (7)
Ceramics and Pottery (1)
Industrial and Commercial Art (8)
Textiles and Embroidery (2)
Southeastern Europe (1)
Southwestern and South Central Europe (2)
Australasia (1)
Industrial and Commercial Art x
Bugatti, Carlo
Benezit Dictionary of Artists
Italian, 19th – 20th century, male.
Active in France from 1900.
Born 12 February 1856, in Milan; died 1940, in Molsheim (Bas-Rhin), France.
Painter, sculptor, designer of ornamental architectural features, decorative artist. Portraits. Furniture.
Orientalism, Art Nouveau.
Carlo Bugatti studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was originally interested in architecture, producing work that was heavily influenced by the strong styles of ancient Egypt and Islam. He later decided to devote himself to designing furniture and ornamentation. His talent was soon recognised and he was awarded many distinctions at exhibitions in London, Turin and at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. He sold his company in Milan and settled in Paris, then in 1910 in Compiègne. At the end of his life, beset by tragedies, including the suicide of his son Rembrandt in 1916, he went to live with his other son, Ettore, who had the car factory at Molsheim. Giovanni, Ettore's son and heir, was killed when testing a car in 1939....
Cauvet, Gilles Paul
French, 18th century, male.
Born 17 April 1731, in Aix-en-Provence; died 15 November 1788, in Paris.
Architect, sculptor, draughtsman, designer of ornamental architectural features. Decorative motifs. Furniture.
Gilles Cauvet, sculptor to Monsieur, the king's brother, banished the mannered style from interior decoration, preferring classical simplicity. He was director of the Académie de St-Luc in Paris, and organised the Exhibition of ...
Giacometti, Diego
Swiss, 20th century, male.
Active from 1925 active in France.
Born 1902, in Stampa; died 15 July 1985, in Paris.
Sculptor, designer of ornamental architectural features. Bestiaries, birds, cats. Furniture.
Diego Giacometti was the younger brother of Alberto Giacometti and went to live with him in Paris in ...
Idromeno, Kol
Gjergj Frashëri
[Nikollë]
(b Shkodër, Aug 15, 1860; d Shkodër, Dec 12, 1939).
Albanian painter, architect, sculptor and photographer. His grandfather Andrea Idromeno was a painter and a doctor of theology; his father, Arsen Idromeno, was a furniture designer and painter. Kol Idromeno took private lessons in painting (1871–5) at the studio of the photographer and painter Pietro Marubi (1834–1903). In 1875 he won a competition and began studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Venice. However, due to arguments with his teacher, he abandoned the school and continued his studies in one of the large studios in Venice (1876–8).
At first Idromeno produced works with both religious and secular themes that were noted for their highly realistic rendering of the human form (e.g. St Mary Magdalene, oil on canvas, 1877; Shkodër Mus.). Many of his biblical works were executed in churches within the Shkodër district, with perhaps his best work being the frescoes of the Orthodox Church in Shkodër, especially the fragment depicting ...
Meadmore, Clement
Geoffrey R. Edwards
(b Melbourne, Feb 9, 1929; d New York, April 19, 2005).
Australian sculptor and designer, active in the USA. He studied aeronautical engineering and later industrial design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, but left without finishing the course. From 1949 to 1953 he worked as an industrial designer, specializing in furniture. Marketed widely in Australia during these years, his furniture was distinguished by its simplicity. It was constructed with plain, undisguised materials such as steel rods, timber laminates, and cord; his tables, chairs, and shelving systems exercised a delight in linear and open structure that conveyed an impression of virtual weightlessness.
In his free time Meadmore began to produce sculptures, carving wooden shapes whose forms were similar to those of tensioned strings, and from 1950 to 1953 experimenting with mobiles. After extensive travel in 1953 in Europe, where he was particularly impressed by modern sculptures that he saw in Belgium, he produced his first large abstract sculptures in welded steel. Some of these, for example ...
Riemerschmid, Richard
German, 19th – 20th century, male.
Born 20 June 1868, in Munich; died 15 April 1957, in Munich.
Painter, sculptor, decorative designer, designer, architect, interior designer. Genre scenes. Furniture, fabrics, ceramic, glassware, carpets, toys.
Richard Riemerschmid trained in painting at the Kunstakademie of Munich from 1888...
Sánchez, Juan Félix
Susanna Temkin
(b San Rafael de Mucuchíes, nr. Mérida, May 16, 1900; d San Rafael de Mucuchíes, Apr 18, 1997).
Venezuelan sculptor, furniture designer, weaver, and architect. He was self-taught as an artist. After various odd jobs including puppeteer, baker's assistant, and clown, he learned to weave on a loom, making traditional blankets, and later hats (see Grupo Cinco 1982, 143–147). In 1935 he carved his first sculptural group representing Christ, the Virgin, and Mary Magdalene (untraced). In 1943 Sánchez moved from San Rafael to El Potrero. There, in 1946, he constructed the only loom in Venezuela with three heddles. In 1952 he began the construction of the Complejo de El Tisure, located in an immense isolated valley near Mérida. His major life's work, this artistic and religious center included various chapels, shrines, and sculptural ensembles conceived and hand-built by Sánchez. Driven by a seemingly atavistic religious mysticism, Sánchez's uniquely individual artistic vision can be compared with Antoni Gaudí.
Located near the Complejo de El Tisure's arched stone entrance, a rough-hewn small shrine adorned with sea shells and corals was created in ...
Sanctis, Fabio de
Italian, 20th century, male.
Born 1931, in Rome.
Sculptor. Furniture.
Phases group.
Fabio de Sanctis studied architecture in Rome, qualifying in 1956. In 1963, together with Ugo Sterpini, he founded the Office Eleven ( Ufficina Undici ), a studio/workshop. In 1964, he met André Breton and the Surrealist group....