On this Day

Born Nov 8 1883 in Lancaster PA, Demuth worked with fellow American artists to develop the concept of Precisionism in his mainly watercolour-centric style of painting. His works often show a range of forms in a quasi-Cubist, sharply-defined manner. Frequently occurring scenes include urban and rural landscapes, often consisting of industrial features such as bridges, […]

Born Nov 7 1933 in Newark NJ, Birmelin is best known for his paintings and drawings capturing urban crowds; particularly the drama, movement and tension of close physical involvement in the city environment. Still active, he believes in drawing from life, memory and imagination as he feels it provides a more vigorous and personal visual

Born 2 Nov 1902 in Ukraine, Margo was a painter of surrealist imagery. In 1919 he enrolled at the Polytechnik of Art at Odessa, and in 1924 received a grant to study at the Workshop for the Art of the Future in Moscow. He then studied the work of the old masters in the Hermitage.

Born 31 Oct 1632 in Delft – Vermeer. Girl in the pearl earring, and all those other famous highly-detailed interior studies. But how did he paint them? Were they traced using a camera obscura? Does it matter? Vermeer mainly painted indoors, but he also painted this: View of Delft. For further reading on the cheat

Born October 31 1760 in Edo, Japan, Katsushika Hokusai, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series – Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, including the iconic print: The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of all time. This is: Fine

Born 30 October 1839 in Paris, Sisley counts as one of THE great impressionsists. Although he was born and spent most of his life in France, he still retained British citizenship. He was possibly the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape “en plein air”. He deviated into figure painting only

Born Oct 23 1838 in Baltimore, Smith is mainly known as the engineer that built the foundation for the Statue of Liberty. But he was also an accomplished artist producing many fine watercolours, including many of Venice or Istanbul.

Born 18 Oct 1906 in St Louis, Brooks was a contemporary and friend of Jackson Pollock, working as an abstract expressionist after serving in the military as an artist in northern Africa. He was among the first artists to use staining, creating “painterly accidents” with buried personal meanings.

Born Oct 6 1920 in Brooklyn, Krisel drew weather maps for the allied forces in WW2. From there he progressed to architecture and abstract art. A prolific painter and sculptor, he also produced silkscreens and lithographs such as: Prisme

Born Oct 4 1933 in Baltimore, Nesbitt had the great job of being official artist for some of the Apollo missions. But he disliked being classified as a photorealist, indeed some of his last works, in the “impossible series” definitely qualify as surreal.