The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (240 page)

(
c.
1675–1739).
Irish painter, active mainly in London. His surname was pronounced, and often spelled, Jarvis. After studying with
Kneller
he spent several years in Italy, particularly Rome, before settling in London in 1709. Jervas had a great reputation and succeeded Kneller as Principal Portrait Painter to King George II in 1723, but his fame depended on his friendship with various literary figures, who trumpeted his praises, rather than on the quality of his work, which does not rise above the level of that of any other of Kneller's pupils or followers. He has perhaps more claim to literary distinction, for he made a well-regarded translation of Cervantes'
Don Quixote
, posthumously published in 1742. His conceit was enormous: once, having copied a painting by
Titian
, he looked from one to the other and said complacently ‘Poor Little Tit! How he would stare!’

 
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An avant-garde artists' association founded in Brussels in 1945. Although the members of the group (which included
Alechinsky
and
Bury
) were strongly individualistic in their aims and had no common programme, they were basically abstract in their outlook and were influenced particularly by
Expressionism
and by the expressive abstraction of the post-war school of
Paris
. The group dissolved in 1948.

 
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(1878–1961).
British painter and graphic artist. He studied at the
Slade
School, 1894–8. In his early days there ‘he appeared a neat, timid, unremarkable personality’ (
DNB
), but after injuring his head diving into the sea while on holiday in Pembrokeshire in 1897 he became a dramatically changed figure, described by Wyndham
Lewis
as ‘a great man of action into whose hands the fairies had placed a paintbrush instead of a sword’. He grew a beard and became the very image of the unpredictable bohemain artist. His work, too, changed dramatically; previously it had been described by
Tonks
as ‘methodical’, but it became vigorous and spontaneous, especially in his brilliant drawings—his draughtsmanship was already legendary by the time he left the Slade. In the first quarter of the 20th cent. John was identified with all that was most independent and rebellious in British art and he became one of the most talked-about figures of the day. In 1911–14 he led a nomadic life, sometimes living in a caravan and camping with gypsies. As well as romanticized pictures of gypsy life he painted deliciously colourful small-scale landscapes, sometimes working alongside his friend J. D.
Innes
. During the same period he also painted ambitious figure compositions, with stylized forms that bring him close to French
Symbolist
painters (
The Way Down to the Sea
, Lamont Art Gallery, Exeter, New Hampshire, 1909–11). In the First World War he was an
Official War Artist
. It is as a portraitist, however, that John is best remembered. He was taken up by society and painted a host of aristocratic beauties as well as many of the leading literary figures of the day. Increasingly, however, the painterly brilliance of his early work degenerated into flashiness and bombast, and the second half of his long career added little to his achievement, although he remained a colourful, newsworthy figure until the end of his life. He was one of the few British artists who have become familiar to the general public, and his image changed from that of rebel to Grand Old Man (he was awarded the Order of Merit in 1942). He wrote two volumes of autobiography,
Chiaroscuro
, 1952, and
Finishing Touches
, posthumously published in 1964. A new edition entitled
The Autobiography of Augustus John
appeared in 1975.

 
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(1876–1939).
British painter. She was the sister of Augustus
John
, but his complete opposite artistically, as she was in personality, living a reclusive life and favouring introspective subjects. After studying at the
Slade
School, 1895–8, she took lessons in Paris from
Whistler
, and adopted from him the delicate greyish tonality that characterizes her work. In 1899 she returned to London, but in 1904 she settled permanently in France, living first in Paris (earning her living modelling for other artists—including
Rodin
, who became her lover), then from 1911 in Meudon, on the outskirts of the city. In 1913 she became a Catholic, and she said ‘My religion and my art, these are my life.’ Most of her paintings depict single figures (typically girls or nuns) in interiors, painted with great sensitivity and an unobtrusive originality. Good examples are her self-portraits in the Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, London. She had only one exhibition devoted to her work during her lifetime (at the New Chenil Galleries, London, in 1936) and at the time of her death was little known. However, her brother's prophecy that one day she would be considered a better artist than him has been fulfilled, for as his star has fallen hers has risen, and since the 1960s she has been the subject of numerous books and exhibitions.

 
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(1930– ).
American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. His career has been closely associated with that of his friend Robert
Rauschenberg
, and they are considered to have been largely responsible for the move away from
Abstract Expressionism
to the types of
Pop art
and
Minimal art
that succeeded it. In the early 1950s he worked as a commercial artist in New York, doing display work for shop windows. He began to emerge on the art scene in 1955 and had his first one-man show at Leo
Castelli's
gallery in New York in 1958. This was an enormous success, and since then he has become one of the most famous (and wealthy) living artists. Much of his work has been done in the form of series of paintings presenting commonplace two-dimensional objects—for example
Flags, Targets
, and
Numbers
—and his sculptures have most characteristically been of equally banal subjects such as beer-cans or brushes in a coffee tin. Such works—at one and the same time laboriously realistic and patently artificial—are seen by his admirers as brilliant explorations of the relationship between art and reality; to others, they are as uninteresting as the objects depicted.