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Denis Mahon
Sir John Denis Mahon, (8 November 1910 – 24 April 2011) was a British collector and historian of Italian art. Considered to be one of the few art collectors who was also a respected scholar, he is generally credited, alongside Sacheverell Sitwell and Tancred Borenius, with bringing Italian pre-Baroque and Baroque painters to the attention of English-speaking audiences, reversing the critical aversion to their work that had prevailed from the time of John Ruskin. Biography Born in London into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family, his father John FitzGerald Mahon (fourth son of Sir William Vesey Ross Mahon, 4th Baronet (1813–1893), was a member of the family that had prospered from the Guinness Mahon merchant bank fortune; and the grandson, through his mother Lady Alice Evelyn Browne, of Henry Browne the fifth Marquess of Sligo. After attending Ludgrove School, Eton College, he went up to Christ Church, University of Oxford, where he received an MA. A lover of opera, he de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cadogan Square
Cadogan Square () is a residential square in Knightsbridge, London, that was named after Earl Cadogan. Whilst it is mainly a residential area, some of the properties are used for diplomatic and educational purposes (notably Hill House School). The square is known for being one of the most expensive residential streets in the United Kingdom, with an average house price of around £5.75 million in 2013. Milner Street runs from the middle of the west side of the square. History The square was built between 1877 and 1888, largely on the grounds of the Prince's Club. The west side has the greatest variety of houses, all variations on the same Flemish-influenced theme. Numbers 54-58 were designed by William Young in 1877 for Lord Cadogan, and the architect J. J. Stevenson was largely responsible for the south side, built in 1879–85. The east side was built in 1879 by G. T. Robinson. Number 61 is an early example of high-class mansion flats, and number 61A was once a studio-ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1951–74). Life Nikolaus Pevsner was born in Leipzig, Saxony, the son of Anna and her husband Hugo Pevsner, a Russian-Jewish fur merchant. He attended St. Thomas School, Leipzig, and went on to study at several universities, Munich, Berlin, and Frankfurt am Main, before being awarded a doctorate by Leipzig in 1924 for a thesis on the Baroque architecture of Leipzig. In 1923, he married Carola ("Lola") Kurlbaum, the daughter of distinguished Leipzig lawyer Alfred Kurlbaum. He worked as an assistant keeper at the Dresden Gallery between 1924 and 1928. He converted from Judaism to Lutheranism early in his life. During this period he became interested in establishing the supremacy of German modernist architecture after becoming aware of Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paymaster-General
His Majesty's Paymaster General or HM Paymaster General is a ministerial position in the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom. The incumbent Paymaster General is Jeremy Quin MP. History The post was created in 1836 by the merger of the positions of the offices of the Paymaster of the Forces (1661–1836), the Treasurer of the Navy (1546–1835), the Paymaster and Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital (responsible for Army pensions) (1681–1835) and the Treasurer of the Ordnance (1670–1835). Initially, the Paymaster General only had responsibilities in relation to the armed services but in 1848 two more offices were merged into that of Paymaster General: the Paymaster of Exchequer Bills (1723–1848) and the Paymaster of the Civil Service (1834–1848), the latter followed by its Irish counterpart in 1861. They thus became 'the principal paying agent of the government and the banker for all government departments except the revenue departments and the National Debt Office'. From ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath also served for 51 years as a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament from 1950 to 2001. Outside politics, Heath was a yachtsman, a musician, and an author. Born to a lady's maid and a carpenter, Heath was educated at a grammar school in Ramsgate, Kent (Chatham House Grammar School for boys) and became a leader within student politics while studying at the University of Oxford. He served as an officer in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War. He worked briefly in the Civil Service (United Kingdom), Civil Service, but resigned in order to stand for Parliament, and was elected for Bexley (UK Parliament constituency), Bexley at the 1950 United Kingdom general election, 1950 el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miranda Carter
Miranda Carter (born 1965) is an English historian, writer and biographer who also publishes fiction under the name MJ Carter.Jake Kerridge ''The Telegraph'', 23 April 2015. Education Carter was educated at St Paul's Girls School and Exeter College, Oxford. Career Carter's first book was a biography of the art historian and spy Anthony Blunt, entitled ''Anthony Blunt: His Lives''. It won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Orwell Prize and was short-listed for the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction, the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread Prize for Best Biography, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In the US it was chosen by the ''New York Times Book Review'' as one of the seven best books of 2002. Her second historical undertaking was ''The Three Emperors'', which was a group biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II and King George V, all world leaders during the First World War. Carter also has written several novels, notably ''The Strangler Vine'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a small group of Italian and French collectors. He returned to Paris for a brief period to serve as First Painter to the King under Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, but soon returned to Rome and resumed his more traditional themes. In his later years he gave growing prominence to the landscape in his paintings. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne. Details of Poussin's artistic training are somewhat obscure. Around 1612 he traveled to Paris, where he studied under minor masters and completed his earliest surviving works. Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy. Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures. His 1967 monograph on the French Baroque painter Nicolas Poussin is still widely regarded as a watershed book in art history.Shone, Richard and Stonard, John-Paul, eds. ''The Books that Shaped Art History'', Introduction. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013. His teaching text and reference work ''Art and Architecture in France 1500–1700'', first published in 1953, reached its fifth edition in a slightly revised version by Richard Beresford in 1999, when it was still considered the best account of the subject. In 1964, after being offered immunity from prosecution, Blunt confessed to having been a spy for the Soviet Union. He was considered to be the "fourth man" of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced many drawings, including a series depicting Londoners sheltering from the Blitz during the Second World War, along with other graphic works on paper. His forms are usually abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures. Moore's works are usually suggestive of the female body, apart from a phase in the 1950s when he sculpted family groups. His forms are generally pierced or contain hollow spaces. Many interpreters liken the undulating form of his reclining figures to the landscape and hills of his Yorkshire birthplace. Moore became well known through his carved marble and larger-scale abstract cast bronze sculptures, and was instrumental in introducing a particular form of modernism to the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular institution and its mission. In recent years the role of curator has evolved alongside the changing role of museums, and the term "curator" may designate the head of any given division. More recently, new kinds of curators have started to emerge: "community curators", "literary curators", " digital curators" and " biocurators". Collections curator A "collections curator", a "museum curator" or a "keeper" of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material including historical artifacts. A collections curator's concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort—artwork, c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi. The National Gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its collection belongs to the government on behalf of the British public, and entry to the main collection is free of charge. Unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein in 1824. After that initial purchase, the Gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, especially Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which now account for two-thirds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism. Born to a poor family in Gori in the Russian Empire (now Georgia), Stalin attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, ''Pravda'', and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings and protection rac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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