Politicians 20th century
Johannes Robert Becher was a German politician, poet, and novelist.
As a young man he was part of the literary avant-garde, writing in the style of Expressionism. As a communist, Becher was evacuated from the Nazi regime to the USSR during World War II, then returned to Germany, where he was among the founders of the GDR Academy of Arts in Berlin and was its president. He was also Minister of Culture of the German Democratic Republic from 1954 to 1958.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, soldier and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
Pedro Figari was a Uruguayan painter, lawyer, writer, and politician. Although he did not begin the practice until his later years, he is best known as an early modernist painter who emphasized capturing the everyday aspects of life in his work. In most of his pieces, he attempts to capture the essence of his home by painting local customs that he had observed in his childhood.
Figari painted primarily from memory, a technique that gives his work a far more personal feeling. With his unique style, which involved painting without the intention to create an illusion, he, along with other prominent Latin-American artists such as Diego Rivera and Tarsila do Amaral, sparked a revolution of identity in the art world of Latin America.
Sir John Forrest was an Australian naturalist, traveler and politician.
He worked as a surveyor and led several exploratory pioneering expeditions to western Australia. On his second voyage in 1870-1871, Forrest made an instrumental survey of the entire southwest coast of Australia from Perth to Adelaide. He later served as Australia's Minister for Defense, and as the first Premier of Western Australia (1890-1901), Forrest sponsored the construction of public works and negotiated the state's entry into the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was an American politician and statesman, the 36th President of the United States (1963-1969).
Johnson was from a Texas farming family and graduated from Southwestern State Teachers College (now Texas State University) in San Marcos, Texas. In 1931, he began serving as Secretary of Congress for newly elected U.S. Representative Richard Kleberg. In 1935 Johnson was appointed Texas director of the National Youth Administration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program. Roosevelt, which helped young people find jobs during the Great Depression. In 1937, Lyndon Johnson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat.
He served briefly in the U.S. Navy during World War II with the rank of lieutenant commander, and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1948. In 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy invited Johnson to be his running mate for vice president. He was elected vice president, and after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, he was sworn in and assumed the presidency on the same day, November 22, 1963.
President Lyndon Johnson soon declared a war on poverty. In the 1964 presidential election, he defeated his Republican rival and introduced a list of new reforms that he was convinced would build a "great society" for all Americans. Johnson also made great strides against racial discrimination, signing the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In foreign policy, however, Johnson could not boast of successes. Increased U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War and heavy casualties led to a sharp rise in anti-war sentiment in the country. Lyndon Johnson's ratings steadily declined, eventually he refused to run for a second term and in January 1969 returned to his ranch in Texas. He spent the last years of his life as a librarian, writing his memoirs and died at the age of 64. Lyndon Johnson has a reputation as one of the least popular presidents in American history.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was an American politician and statesman, 35th President of the United States (1961-1963).
John was born in a family of natives of Ireland, his father - Joseph Kennedy - a Democratic politician, who headed the Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1930s, was U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. John studied at Harvard and Princeton Universities and traveled to Europe in 1937. During World War II he served in the U.S. Navy and received a number of awards, and immediately after the war he entered politics.
In 1946, John F. Kennedy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, in 1952, with the help of financial support from the Kennedy family won election to the Senate and held the post until the end of 1960. In the presidential election of 1960, 43-year-old Kennedy with a small margin of victory over Richard Nixon, becoming the 35th President of the United States.
The time of Kennedy's presidency was marked by the escalation of the Cold War. Its peak was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the confrontation between Washington and Moscow almost led to nuclear war. With great difficulty the parties managed to reach a compromise - during the negotiations the USSR undertook to remove missiles from Cuba in return for the dismantling of American missiles in Turkey. Since the beginning of 1963, the U.S. President increasingly spoke out in favor of peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union. In August 1963, the U.S., USSR and Great Britain signed a treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space and underwater, which entered into force in October 1963. In the same 1963, when the country was hit by a wave of protests of the colored population, he introduced a bill in Congress that banned segregation in public places.
On November 22, 1963, during a trip to Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded. He was 46 years old. Lee Harvey Oswald was held as the prime suspect in the assassination, who was shot and killed two days later by Jack Ruby in the garage of the Dallas police station. There are various versions of the reasons for the President's assassination, but none of them has been fully proven so far.
In his free time from politics, John F. Kennedy managed to write a book "Stories of Courage", for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. These are biographies of people whom he considered to be models of courage in politics. In 1958, Kennedy published a book called A Nation of Immigrants.
Martin Luther King Jr, born Michael King, is an American preacher, leader of the Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and Nobel Laureate.
His father was the famous Baptist missionary and leader of the Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King Sr. (1899-1984). He studied medicine and law at Morehouse College, then earned a bachelor's degree in theology at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, followed by a doctorate in theology at Boston University. And beginning in 1955, King Jr. became active in the community with protests over segregated seating on public buses.
On September 20, 1958, the first assassination attempt was made on Martin. Isola Ware Curry, a mentally unstable Harlem woman, stabbed King with a metal letter opener at a department store where he was signing copies of Stride Toward Freedom as part of a tour to promote the book.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a driving force behind such watershed events as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington, which resulted in the historic Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965). He was a prominent African American leader of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his activism for civil rights and social justice. King also actively opposed the Vietnam War, calling for an end to the bombing, negotiations, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated by gunfire on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. James Earl Ray, a petty criminal who had escaped from a maximum-security prison a year earlier, was blamed for the murder. Years after his death, Martin Luther King Jr. became the most famous African-American leader of his era. Today, he has a reputation as a visionary leader who was deeply committed to achieving social justice through nonviolent means. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed into law a U.S. federal day in King's honor; it is observed nationwide on the third Monday in January.
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, more commonly known as Diego Rivera, was a prominent Mexican painter celebrated for his critical role in establishing the Mexican mural movement both nationally and internationally. Born on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico, to a well-to-do family, Rivera was a child prodigy in art, encouraged by his parents from a young age after they noticed his penchant for drawing. This early support included installing chalkboards and canvases on the walls of their home to foster his talent.
Rivera's art was not just limited to murals; he was also a key figure in Mexican Cubism and had a rich body of easel paintings. However, his murals, depicting scenes of Mexican society and reflecting his leftist political views, remain his most notable contributions. Some of his most famous works include "Man at the Crossroads," which stirred controversy due to its inclusion of Lenin, leading to its destruction at the Rockefeller Center in New York. Rivera's murals are scattered across Mexico and the United States, serving as historical documents that highlight his technical skill and deep social engagement.
His personal life was as colorful and tumultuous as his art, marked by multiple marriages, including to fellow artist Frida Kahlo. Their relationship was both passionate and stormy, significantly influencing their respective works. Rivera's legacy extends beyond his artwork; he was a mentor to several artists and left an indelible mark on the art world with his contributions to public art and his political activism. His works have been declared national monuments by the Mexican government, underscoring his pivotal role in the country's cultural heritage.
For collectors and experts in art and antiques, Rivera's works offer not only aesthetic beauty but also deep social and historical insights. If you're passionate about adding a piece of this rich cultural heritage to your collection or staying updated on auction events related to Diego Rivera's art, signing up for updates can provide you with timely information on new sales and exhibitions featuring his masterpieces.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an American politician and statesman, the 32nd President of the United States (1932-1945).
Franklin was educated at Harvard University and Columbia Law School. His cousin was President Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin also went into public service, but as a Democrat. He was elected to the New York Senate in 1910, President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and Roosevelt became Governor of New York in 1928.
In November 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president of the United States. Taking office in the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt, with his "Hundred Days" and "New Deal" programs, helped the American people regain faith in themselves. In 1936, he was re-elected by a large margin. During this difficult political period, he sought through neutrality legislation to keep the U.S. out of the war in Europe, but at the same time to strengthen countries that were threatened or attacked. Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, drew the country into the war.
In 1944, as Hitler's Germany was nearing its collapse, an ailing Roosevelt managed to win the presidency again. The following February, he met with Churchill and Stalin at the famous Yalta Conference. His health was deteriorating, and on April 12, 1945, Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was the only U.S. president to be elected to office four times. Roosevelt successfully led the United States through two of the greatest crises of the 20th century: the Great Depression and World War II.
Tristan Tzara, originally named Sami (Samuel) Rosenstock, was a Romanian and French artist and writer best known as a founding figure of the Dada movement. Born in 1896 in Moinești, Romania, Tzara's influence extends across poetry, performance, and manifesto writing, marking him as a pivotal personality in 20th-century art and culture. His work challenged conventional norms and sought to disrupt the traditional boundaries of art, making him a central figure in the avant-garde community.
Dada, the movement with which Tzara is most closely associated, emerged as a reaction against the horrors of World War I, advocating for irrationality and anti-bourgeois protest. Tzara's contributions, including his manifestos, poetry, and performances, were instrumental in shaping Dada's legacy. His art and writings emphasized the importance of spontaneity and chaos, challenging the status quo and the very definition of art itself. Tzara's approach was not confined to a single medium; he explored poetry, playwriting, and critical theory, leaving a diverse and impactful body of work.
Though Tzara is not widely known for sculpture or painting in the traditional sense, his influence on these and other art forms is undeniable. His work and ideas laid the groundwork for later avant-garde movements, including Surrealism. While specific works of Tzara in museums or galleries were not detailed in the research, his legacy is preserved through the collections of major institutions worldwide, reflecting his enduring impact on the arts.
For collectors and experts in art and antiques, understanding Tzara's contributions provides insight into the radical shifts in culture and art in the early 20th century. His work remains a testament to the power of art to challenge, provoke, and transform. To stay informed about new product sales and auction events related to Tristan Tzara, sign up for our updates. This subscription ensures you're alerted to unique opportunities to engage with the history and legacy of a key figure in modern art.
