Writers 21st century
Ugo Attardi was an Italian painter, sculptor and writer. Attardi moved from Genoa to Rome in the early 1950s, where he formed the group Forma 1 together with other artists. His sculpture of Ulysses is now permanently installed in Battery Park in New York
Christian Ludwig Attersee, born Christian Ludwig, is an Austrian media artist living in Vienna and Semmering in Lower Austria.
The artist took his middle name, Attersee, from the area where he spent his youth. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Applied Arts and his work was characterized early on by flamboyant sexualization. He is known not only as a visual artist, but also as a musician, writer, object artist, designer, stage designer and film director. In the 1960s and 1970s he also created series on themes of food, everyday objects, beauty and cosmetics.
Attersee is known above all as one of the leading representatives of objective painting in Europe in the last 50 years. In the second half of the seventies he became the founder of the "New Austrian Painting". From 1990 to 2009, Atterse held a chair at the Vienna University of Applied Arts.
Dorothee Bachem is a German-born, distinctive artist and writer who runs a studio in Flensburg.
Bachem studied art at the Berlin University of the Arts and works in various techniques - multi-layered painting, collage, printmaking.
With her unique poetics, Bachem creates surreal, dreamlike, timeless picture stories in which the influence of Picasso and Cubism can be read.
Peter Hill Beard was an American artist, photographer, diarist, and writer who lived and worked in New York City, Montauk and Kenya. His photographs of Africa, African animals and the journals that often integrated his photographs, have been widely shown and published since the 1960s.
Saul Bellow, real name Solomon Bellows, is a Jewish American writer and Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winner.
Sol Bellow was born in Canada to Jewish immigrant parents from St. Petersburg, Russia, and grew up in Chicago. He attended the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, majoring in anthropology and sociology. Chicago was the setting for many of his novels of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1993, he took a position in the English Department at Boston University.
Bellow wrote his first book, The Dangling Man (1944), while serving in the Merchant Marine during World War II, and he published the novel The Victim in 1947. Saul Bellow is considered one of the most important Jewish American writers who wrote after World War II. Like his predecessors, he offers a Jewish perspective on the themes of alienation and otherness in the difficult postwar era of fragmentation, translating the Yiddish American experience into English.
Bellow has received the world's highest honors for his works. In 1954, his novel The Adventures of Augie March won the National Book Award for fiction. In 1975, the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Humboldt Gift; the International Herzog Literary Award; and the Croix de Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, France's highest literary honor for non-citizens. In 1976, Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Gastone Biggi was an Italian painter, sculptor, writer, poet, and musicologist.
Biggi combined painting with his activities as an art writer and musicologist. In 1962 his key work The Birth of the Point was published, theorizing the study of the sign module, which he would develop throughout his life. That same year he formed Group 1.
Quentin Saxby Blake is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works.[a] For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.
Micha Brendel is a German artist living and working in Hohendorf/Lower Lusatia.
Brendel started his career as an assistant artist, then studied at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee and at the HfBK Dresden. He was one of the founders of the Auto-Perforations-Artisten association and editor of independent magazines for artists.
Brendel's early works centered on self-portraits and photographs of his own body, distorted with photographic techniques. He also made extensive use of organics, including animal bones and skin, in the creation of a wide variety of works. A common theme is self-destruction and alienation, shock and disgust. Brendel wrote detailed accounts of his creative process that became the basis for books.
Brendel's work, which often crosses boundaries, includes drawings, photographs, inscriptions, artist's books, taxidermy objects, installations and performances. He is currently intensifying his work with writing and nature and curating exhibition projects.
Raymond Redvers Briggs was a British writer, illustrator, and cartoonist.
A professional illustrator, he worked on the design of children's books. In the 1960s, Briggs discovered his talent and ability to combine words and pictures, using a form of strip cartooning that defined his later work.
Briggs is best known for his wordless book The Snowman, published in 1978, a sort of cute children's tale but with deep meaning. The animated and musical versions of this book are popular in Britain and are shown annually at Christmas.
Jason Brooks is a contemporary British artist known for his fashion illustrations and portraits. He was born in 1969 and studied at Chelsea School of Art and Central Saint Martins in London. His work has been published in publications such as Vogue, Elle and The New Yorker.
Jason Brooks has worked with fashion brands including Chanel, L'Oreal and Christian Dior. As well as commercial work, he has exhibited his work in galleries around the world, including the Saatchi Gallery in London and the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo.
Lothar-Günther Buchheim was a German writer, artist, and collector.
He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. During World War II he served in Hitler's navy as a correspondent and worked as a war artist for the Nazi propaganda apparatus. His portraits of Third Reich officers and images of submarines were successful. Buchheim rose to fame with his novel Das Boot, which became an international bestseller and the basis for the movie Submarine.
Michel Butor was a French writer and poet, associated with the Nouveau Roman literary movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He was known for his experimental writing style, which often challenged traditional narrative structures and explored the relationship between language, identity, and memory.
Butor studied philosophy and literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1954, he published his first novel, "Passage de Milan," which established his reputation as a leading figure of the Nouveau Roman movement.
Throughout his career, Butor wrote more than twenty novels, as well as essays, poetry, and other works. His writing often incorporated elements of travelogue and autobiography, and he frequently collaborated with visual artists on projects that combined text and image.
In addition to his literary work, Butor was a respected teacher and critic, and he lectured at universities around the world. He was awarded numerous honors and awards for his contributions to French literature, including the Prix Renaudot in 1957.
His legacy as an innovative and influential writer continues to be celebrated by literary scholars and readers around the world.
Thomas Calloway Lea III was an American muralist, illustrator, painter, war correspondent, writer and historian. Much of his fiction and literary work has focused on Texas, north-central Mexico, and his World War II experiences in the South Pacific and Asia. Two of his most popular novels, The Brave Bulls and The Wonderful Country, are considered classics of Southwestern American literature.
Leonora Carrington was a British-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s.
Dominic Chambers is an African-American contemporary artist and writer. He creates vibrant paintings that simultaneously appeal to historical models of art, such as colour field painting and gestural abstraction, and contemporary concerns about race, identity, and the need for rest and reflection. Many of Chambers' compositions incorporate elements of Fabulism, including ghostly silhouettes and surrealist landscapes.
Edmund Arthur Lowndes de Waal is a contemporary English artist, master potter and author. He is known for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels often created in response to collections and archives or the history of a particular place. De Waal's book The Hare with Amber Eyes was awarded the Costa Book Award for Biography, Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize in 2011 and Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Non-Fiction in 2015. De Waal's second book The White Road, tracing his journey to discover the history of porcelain was released in 2015.
Manfred Dinnes is a German painter, sculptor, writer and art gallery director. He was also cultural editor of Europeonline magazine.
Manfred Dinnes travelled around the world to study other cultures in his youth. In 1973-74 he trained as a church painter-restorer. At the same time he was introduced to the craft of glass painting and glass blowing. Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg in 1979, where he studied freehand painting with Gerhard Wendland, Ludwig Scharl and Franz Wintzinger.
Since founding Visual-Art Concepts in 2007, Dinnes has created large sculptures from 7 to 8 metres in height.
Pavlos Dionyssopoulos was a Greek artist born in Filiatra, Greece in 1930 and passed away in 2019. He was known for his unique and colorful abstract paintings, which were influenced by the art movements of the 20th century, including surrealism and abstract expressionism.
Dionyssopoulos studied art in Greece and later in France, where he was exposed to the works of famous artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. His style evolved throughout his career, starting with realistic portraits and landscapes before moving towards abstract art.
He held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Greece and internationally, including in Paris, New York, and Tokyo. His works can be found in private collections and museums around the world.
Dionyssopoulos was a member of the Greek Chamber of Fine Arts and was awarded the "Order of the Phoenix" by the Greek government for his contributions to the arts. He was also a writer and poet, and his poetry was published in several Greek literary journals.
Today, Pavlos Dionyssopoulos is considered one of the most important Greek artists of the 20th century, known for his unique style and contributions to the development of abstract art in Greece.
Jimmie Durham was an American sculptor, essayist and poet. He was active in the United States in the civil rights movements of African Americans and Native Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, serving on the central council of the American Indian Movement (AIM). He returned to working at art while living in New York City. His work has been extensively exhibited. Durham also received the Günther-Peill-Preis (2003), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Robert Rauschenberg Award (2017), and the 58th Venice Biennale's Golden Lion for lifetime achievement (2019).
Ed Dwight, full name Edward Joseph Dwight Jr. is an American sculptor, writer, and former test pilot.
He was the first African-American to enter the Air Force training program from which NASA selected astronauts. He resigned from the Air Force in 1966 for reasons of racial discrimination, politics and bureaucracy and turned to the arts. Dwight earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the University of Denver in 1977 and excelled as an artist. Most of Dwight's work depicts only black people, and his acclaimed series Jazz: The Shape of American Art focuses on the evolution of jazz and includes all iconic jazz performers.
Ed Dwight has had a thriving career in sculpture and has many high-profile projects to his credit. His unique masterpieces are displayed in several memorials across the United States. He has also become a historian and writer.
Aleсos Fassianos (Greek: Αλέκος Φασιανός), also Alexandre Fassianos, was a Greek painter, writer and poet. He is internationally known for his figurative paintings that depict the contemporary world in a mythological way.
T. Lux Feininger, a German-American artist. He was known for his multifaceted talents as a painter, avant-garde photographer, author, and art teacher. His artistic journey began at the Bauhaus in Dessau, where he studied under influential figures like Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Feininger was also a member of the Bauhaus Band and had his first solo show in Manhattan in 1937.
T. Lux Feininger's work explored various subjects, including transportation and self-portraits, and he continued to paint in a semi-abstract prismatic style influenced by his father, Lyonel Feininger, and Wassily Kandinsky throughout his life. In addition to painting, he also pursued photography, focusing on transportation subjects and Manhattan street scenes, although he did not exhibit these later photographs.
T. Lux Feininger's contribution to art education was significant, teaching at prestigious institutions like Sarah Lawrence College, Harvard's Fogg Museum, and the School of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His written works include several books, notably one about his father and another reflecting on his life between the Bauhaus and America.
For collectors and experts in art and antiques, Feininger's work represents a unique blend of Bauhaus influence and individual exploration. To stay informed about exhibitions and news related to T. Lux Feininger's works, subscribing to updates from art galleries and museums is recommended.
Nathan Louis (Nat) Finkelstein was an American photographer and photojournalist. Finkelstein studied photography under Alexey Brodovitch, the art director of Harper's Bazaar and worked as a photojournalist for the Black Star and PIX photo agencies, reporting primarily on the political developments of various subcultures in New York City in the 1960s. In 1964, Finkelstein entered Andy Warhol's Factory as a photojournalist and remained for three years; Finkelstein's photographs from this period are now regarded as some of the most iconic of the time.
Ian Hamilton Finlay was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.
Finlay's work is notable for a number of recurring themes: a penchant for classical writers (especially Virgil); a concern with fishing and the sea; an interest in the French Revolution; and a continual revisiting of World War II and the memento mori Latin phrase Et in Arcadia ego.
Finlay was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1985. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Aberdeen University in 1987, Heriot-Watt University in 1993 and the University of Glasgow in 2001, and an honorary and/or visiting professorship from the University of Dundee in 1999. The French Communist Party presented him with a bust of Saint-Just in 1991. He received the Scottish Horticultural Medal from the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society in 2002, and the Scottish Arts Council Creative Scotland Award in 2003.
Daniel Graham was an American visual artist, writer, and curator in the writer-artist tradition. In addition to his visual works, he published a large array of critical and speculative writing that spanned the spectrum from heady art theory essays, reviews of rock music, Dwight D. Eisenhower's paintings, and Dean Martin's television show. His early magazine-based art predates, but is often associated with, conceptual art. His later work focused on cultural phenomena by incorporating photography, video, performance art, glass and mirror installation art structures, and closed-circuit television.
Aldona Maria Gustas is a German poet, illustrator, and graphic designer of Lithuanian origin.
In 1972, Gustas co-founded an art forum in West Berlin, the Berliner Malerpoeten, a group of artists who simultaneously wrote and illustrated their works.
Alex Israel is an American multimedia artist, writer, and eyewear designer from Los Angeles. His work includes large, colorful airbrushed paintings of abstract gradients and Los Angeles skies, his self-portraits, painted on shaped fiberglass panels, and multimedia installations constructed from movie-house props.
Marcus Antonius Jansen is an American painter.
Jansen's solo museum exhibitions include the Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy, the Museum Zitadelle, Berlin, Germany, the Baker Museum in Naples, Florida, and the Rollins Museum of Art in Winter Park, Florida.
He is represented by Almine Rech in Paris, London, Shanghai, Brussels and New York as well as by Richard Beavers Gallery in Brooklyn and Soho in Manhattan.
Jansen is the author of the book Modern Urban-Expressionism, the art of Marcus Antonius Jansen published in 2006.
Stephan Kaluza is a multifaceted artist known for his work as a photographer, painter, and author. Living and working in Düsseldorf, Kaluza has developed a unique artistic voice that explores the intersections of natural philosophy, history, and the essence of human perception through both his visual art and literary works. His education in Düsseldorf during the 1990s, encompassing studies in photography, art history, and philosophy, has deeply influenced his creative output, allowing him to craft works that resonate on multiple levels with viewers and readers alike.
Stephan Kaluza's art often delves into themes of nature and creation, with his paintings ranging from hyperrealistic depictions to nearly abstract portrayals of forests and water surfaces. Notably, his work introduces disturbances into seemingly idyllic landscapes, revealing the layers of history and human impact hidden beneath the surface beauty of nature. This duality invites viewers to question the reality of what they see and to consider the deeper narratives that landscapes can hold, especially when those landscapes have served as backdrops to historical events or personal stories.
One of his most ambitious projects, the "Das Rheinprojekt," saw Stephan Kaluza undertaking an almost eight-month journey along the Rhine River. Documenting the river's right bank in over 21,000 photographs, he created a panoramic view that challenges traditional perspectives of landscape photography. This work, along with his "Das Mauerprojekt" and other photographic series, underscores Kaluza's commitment to capturing and conveying the complex relationship between humanity and the natural world.
Stephan Kaluza's contributions to the fields of art and literature have been recognized with awards such as the George-Konell-Preis of Wiesbaden and the Price of the Carl- und Ruth Lauterbach-Stiftung Dusseldorf. His works are held in both public and private collections worldwide, including the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, USA, and the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, Germany, highlighting his international appeal and the broad relevance of his themes.
For collectors and experts in art and antiques, Stephan Kaluza offers a profound engagement with the world through the lens of an artist deeply informed by a rich educational background and a keen sensitivity to the natural and cultural landscapes that shape our experiences. His work invites contemplation and dialogue, making his pieces valuable additions to any collection.
Stay updated on Stephan Kaluza's latest works, exhibitions, and publications by subscribing to newsletters from galleries and museums that feature his work. This subscription ensures access to new sales, auction events, and showcases related to Kaluza's evolving portfolio, offering insights into contemporary art and literature influenced by his unique perspective.
Benjamin Katz is a contemporary German artist, photographer and actor of Belgian origin.
He is known mainly for his photographs of artistic and cultural events. From 2006-2008, he taught photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. He has participated in a number of international exhibitions.
Jan Koblasa was a Czech sculptor, painter, graphic artist, author of philosophical essays and university lecturer. He studied at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts.
Jan Koblasa was a professor of sculpture at the Mufeus Art Academy in Kiel from 1969 to 1997. His lessons included traditional plastic forms of expression, such as portraits, figures and nudes, but he also gave his students great freedom for further artistic activity.
From 2002 to 2005, Koblasa taught as professor emeritus of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
Arthur Karl Maderson is an Irish impressionist painter.
Arthur Maderson studied at Camberwell School of Art (London) and regularly exhibits at the Royal Academy and the Royal Hibernian Academy. In painting, Maderson uses the same principles as Claude Monet and other French Impressionists. He paints beach scenes, landscapes and figurative compositions.
The artist has also written numerous articles for magazines, as well as for the Encyclopedia of Oil Painting Techniques and other art history publications.
Paul Mersmann was a German sculptor, painter, and writer, renowned for his unique contributions to art and culture. His early works, created around 1960, exhibit a transition from late surrealism to mannerism, showcasing a deep engagement with European post-baroque painting. Notably, Mersmann's paintings, such as "Furore," reflect the horrors of war through a psychological lens rather than realistic depictions.
In the 1980s, Paul Mersmann embarked on a series of murals, including notable works in the Villa Glücklich in Wiesbaden and the "Hic est finis maris" mural in Schaidt. His art provides a profound commentary on the nature of art and its evolving context throughout history. These pieces are celebrated for their originality and complexity, offering a rich narrative that blends artistic expression with cultural and historical insights.
Paul Mersmann's contributions extended beyond painting to include watercolor works and sculptures, such as the "Adlermensch" and "Rosmerta" from the late 1980s and early 1990s. His diverse body of work reflects a deep intellectual engagement with art, making his contributions invaluable to collectors and experts in the fields of art and antiques.
For those interested in exploring Mersmann's legacy further, his works and their significance offer a fascinating journey into the intersection of art, culture, and history. To stay informed about new product sales and auction events related to Paul Mersmann, consider signing up for updates, ensuring you remain connected to the evolving narrative of this distinguished artist's impact on the art world.
Joel Meyerowitz is an American street, portrait and landscape photographer and a pioneer of color photography. He lives and works in New York and London.
Meyerowitz became interested in color photography in 1962, when color photography was not yet considered serious art. There have been documentaries about him, and he is the author of 43 books, including one on the art of photography. Meyerowitz was the only photographer who received official permission to photograph the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York.
Meyerowitz continues to be an inspiration and a leader in photography today.
Jovan Mihailović is a Serbian and American musician, artist and writer.
Jovan Mihailović was born and raised in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, where he and his family survived the Nazi occupation and the transition to communism. From a young age, he demonstrated artistic ability and began to draw, paint and play the violin. He studied at the Belgrade Theater Academy, worked as a playwright in Yugoslavia and traveled throughout Western Europe as a folk musician before immigrating to Sweden, Canada and finally Chicago in 1971.
Jovan was an active member of Chicago's creative community for four decades, writing dozens of novels, plays, and short stories, as well as performing music in restaurants and cafes. He also created many hundreds of drawings and paintings that are full of emotionally intense images from the artist's mystical universe of beauty.
Andrei Viktorovich Sumnin (Russian: Андрей Викторович Сумнин), known under the pseudonym Andrei Monastyrski (Russian: Андрей Монастырский), was a Russian poet, writer, artist, and art theorist, as well as one of the founders of Moscow Conceptualism. In 1976, he became one of the founders of the group "Collective Actions" and the author-editor of most volumes of the documentation "Trips out of Town". Andrei Monastyrski also participated in exhibitions of Apt-Art and the Club of Avant-Garde (KLAVA) in Moscow, as well as numerous domestic and foreign exhibitions. He is also the author of theoretical articles on contemporary art in domestic and foreign publications.
