The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (165 page)

 
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Fauvism
.

Style of painting based on the use of intensely vivid non-naturalistic colours, the first of the major avant-garde developments in European art between the turn of the century and the First World War. The dominant figure of the Fauvist group was Henri
Matisse
, and other artists involved included
Braque
,
Derain
,
Marquet
,
Rouault
, and
Vlaminck
. They exhibited together at the
Salon d'Automne
of 1905 and their name was given to them by the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who pointed to a
quattrocento
-like sculpture in the middle of the same gallery and exclaimed: ‘Donatello au milieu des fauves!’ (
Donatello
among the wild beasts). The Fauves exhibited together again at the
Salon des Indépendants
of 1906, but with most of the group Fauvism was a temporary phase through which they passed in the development of widely different styles, and at no later period did their work display again such a degree of similarity. Only Matisse continued to explore the beauty of pure colour. Although short-lived, however, Fauvism was highly influential, particularly on the development of German
Expressionism
.

 
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Federal Art Project
.

A project run by the US Government from 1935 to 1943, with the dual purpose of assisting artists who had been hard hit by the Depression and of deploying the artistic potential of the country in the decoration of public buildings and places. There were also a Federal Writers Project, a Federal Theatre Project, and a Federal Music Project, and collectively they are known as the Federal Arts Projects. They were part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a work programme for the unemployed executed as part of President F. D. Roosevelt's New Deal. At its peak the Federal Art Project employed more than 5,000 people, not only decorating public buildings but also producing prints, posters, various works of craft, and setting up community art centres and galleries in areas where art was virtually unknown. The project also involved an
Index of American Design
, a gigantic documentation of the decorative arts in America. Virtually all the major American artists of the period were involved, either as teachers or practitioners. A huge amount of work was generated by the Federal Art Project, but most of it was unremarkable in quality.

 
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(1871–1956).
American painter who spent most of his career in Europe. He was born in New York into a German-American musical family. In 1887 he went to Germany with the intention of studying music, but he turned instead to art. He had drawings published in Berlin's humorous weeklies and by the turn of the century he was Germany's leading political cartoonist. In 1906–8 he lived in Paris and under the influence of Robert
Delaunay
turned seriously to painting. By 1912 he had evolved a personal style (influenced by
Cubism
but highly distinctive) in which natural forms were treated in terms of a rhythmic pattern of prismatically coloured interpenetrating planes bounded by straight lines—a manner that he applied particularly to architectural and marine subjects. His work impressed the members of the
Blaue Reiter
, who invited Feininger to exhibit with them in 1913. Although he was an alien, he remained in Germany throughout the First World War and afterwards taught at the
Bauhaus
from its foundation in 1919 (one of his woodcuts appeared on the cover of its manifesto) until its closure by the Nazis in 1933; he was the only person to be on the staff from start to finish. In 1935 he visited the USA and in 1937 (the year in which the Nazis declared his work
degenerate
) he returned there permanently. He settled in New York and adopted the architecture of Manhattan as one of his favourite subjects, working with vigour into his eighties. His son Andreas Feininger (1906– ) is a distinguished photographer and writer on photography.

 
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(active 1740s). American Colonial portrait painter. Nothing is known of his life until 1741 when he executed a large portrait group in Boston,
Isaac Royall and his Family
(Harvard Univ.). He was active from that time in Newport and Philadelphia until 1750, when his life is once more veiled in obscurity. There are about fifteen signed portraits from his hand and about fifty more are reasonably attributed to him. His works are somewhat lacking in characterization, but their strength and clarity of design and delicacy of touch give them a high place among Colonial portraits.

 
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