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Artist Birthday

Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Francis Frith (1822-1898 Britain)

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 | Karl Cole

Tourists were the main consumers of photographic views of far-off places during the early days of photography. The camera was considered the best chance to record exotic far-off places “beyond a ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Kusakabe Meikaku (1838-1922 Japan)

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 | Karl Cole

Meikaku Kusakabe unfortunately was born too early to be voted a Living National Treasure in Japan, an honor inaugurated in 1953, that he surely merited. But he was a universally recognized as a callig ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Ivan Kudryashov (1896-1972 Russia)

Friday, October 2, 2026 | Karl Cole

Ivan Kudryashov was active in the exciting period of Russian modernism that blossomed right before the Russian Revolution (1917), and continued into the 1920s, the last decade before avant-garde art w ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Larry Poons (born 1937 US)

Thursday, October 1, 2026 | Karl Cole

The paintings of Larry Poons lie somewhere between Color Field and Minimalism, with a dash of action painting thrown in at some times. His paintings of the last 30 years have revealed exciting, lively ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Ulrich Rückreim (born 1938 Germany)

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 | Karl Cole

Ulrich Rückreim’s experience as a stonecutter helping to renovate Cologne Cathedral led to a career as a sculptor. The pristine stone that is worked in the quarry into slabs and blocks is w ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Niizuma Minoru (1930-1998 Japan)

Tuesday, September 29, 2026 | Karl Cole

Minoru Niizuma came to the US after WW II to further investigate modernism. He quickly became one of the more significant abstract sculptors. His respect for materials and reflection of Japanese aesth ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Roni Horn (born 1955 US)

Friday, September 25, 2026 | Karl Cole

Roni Horn’s work consistently generates uncertainty to thwart closure. Important across her oeuvre is her longstanding interest to the protean nature of identity, meaning, and perception, as wel ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Julio Le Parc (1928-2026 France, born Argentina)

Wednesday, September 23, 2026 | Karl Cole

When the subject of Op Art (optical art) comes up, usually artist names such as Victor Vasarely or Bridget Riley usually spring to mind. Julio Le Parc was a pioneer of motion and light artworks starti ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Alma W. Thomas (1891-1978 US)

Tuesday, September 22, 2026 | Karl Cole

Alma Woodsey Thomas was a pioneering African American abstract painter and art educator. Any art historian who is a nut about color as I am certainly knows her work!   ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Sylvia Plimack Mangold (born 1938 US)

Friday, September 18, 2026 | Karl Cole

A large part of the early body of art work by Sylvia Plimack Mangold put the “real” in Photorealism. For awhile now, she has been producing lyrical studies of landscape and nature around h ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Jean Arp (1886-1966 France)

Wednesday, September 16, 2026 | Karl Cole

Jean Arp was truly an artist who was in the right place at the right time when it came to helping discover the Dada art movement during World War I (1914-1918). His truly imaginative and unique works ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915 Japan)

Thursday, September 10, 2026 | Karl Cole

Kiyochika Kobayashi was undoubtedly one of the late, great masters of the Ukiyo-e style in the late 1800s Japan. He brilliantly blended tradition with Western influences.    ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Robert Arneson (1930-1992 US)

Friday, September 4, 2026 | Karl Cole

Robert Arneson was part of the West Coast version of the Pop Art scene. He was also part of the studio pottery movement, which helped raise the profile of ceramics to the level of fine art. ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Rudolf Belling (1886-1972 Germany)

Wednesday, August 26, 2026 | Karl Cole

Rudolf Belling is considered the outstanding example of modernism applied to classic sculpture subjects. He was influenced by Cubism, Neo-Plasticism, Constructivism, and De Stijl.     ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Doug LaFortune (born 1953, Coast Salish First Nations, Bellingham, WA)

Tuesday, August 25, 2026 | Karl Cole

Like the many other indigenous cultures of the US, the Coast Salish and other Northwest Coast cultures possess a rich, multifaceted artistic culture. Northwest Coast indigenous artists such as sculpto ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Eero Saarinen (1910-1962 US, born Finland)

Thursday, August 20, 2026 | Karl Cole

Having flown into Dulles Airport two times in my life, once at 9 years old, and once in my 30s, I can honestly say it is one of the most stunningly beautiful airports I’ve ever traveled through. ...

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