The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (94 page)

(1907– ).
Italian-born American art dealer. He settled in New York in the late 1940s and originally sold modern European works, acquired mainly through contacts he had established during the 1930s when he had been a dealer in Paris. However, finding this market dominated by more established dealers, he turned to American art, and in 1958 he first showed work by Jasper
Johns
and Robert
Rauschenberg
, the two artists with whom he is most closely identified. In the catalogue of the exhibition ‘American Art in the 20th Century’ (Royal Academy, London, 1993), Castelli is described as ‘perhaps the most influential art dealer of the twentieth century … The reputations of most of the major artists of the 1960s were made under his guidance. he established the careers of Cy
Twombly
, Frank
Stella
and Roy
Lichtenstein
, before enhancing the standing of Andy
Warhol
… With his first exhibition of Claes
Oldenburg
in 1974, Castelli completed his group of
Pop
celebrities … In the early years he helped to change the American gallery system by introducing a European-type retainer (monthly wages advanced against royalties from future sales), enabling his artists to concentrate exclusively on their art.’

 
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(
c.
1610–65).
Genoese painter, etcher, and draughtsman. His style of painting owed something to
Rubens
, van
Dyck
, and Bernardo
Strozzi
, all of whom worked in Genoa, whilst his etchings depend particularly on
Rembrandt
. This openness to foreign influence was unusual for an Italian artist of this period. He was extremely versatile as well as eclectic, being equally at home with
Grand Manner
history paintings and rustic genre scenes (he was a superb animal painter). Some of his best works have a sense of fantasy recalling Salvator
Rosa
, notably the etching
The Genius of Castiglione
(1648). He was highly prolific as a graphic artist as well as a painter and is credited with inventing the
monotype
. From 1648 he was court painter at Mantua, a post in which he was succeeded by his son
Francesco
(d. 1716). His work had wide influence, for example, on
Fragonard
and Giambattista
Tiepolo
.

 
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(
c.
1480–1531).
Venetian painter of religious subjects and portraits. Catena was a man of good birth and independent means who moved in humanist circles and may have been the link between these circles and
Giorgione
. He is first mentioned in 1506 in an inscription on the back of Giorgione's portrait
Laura
(Kunsthistorisches Mus., Vienna), according to which they had entered into some kind of partnership. Nothing else is known of this arrangement. The main influence on his style was Giovanni
Bellini
. His early paintings can be awkward and stiff, but from
c.
1510 his work matured under the influence of the late Bellini,
Cima
, and
Titian
into a style that was derivative but handsome, with pleasing handling of diffused light and warm colours. There are several paintings by Catena or attributed to him in the National Gallery, London.

 
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(1796–1872).
American painter and writer, renowned for his portrayal of Red Indian life. He practised law before becoming an artist in the early 1820s (initially as a portraitist in Philadelphia) and was completely self-taught. In 1830 he began a series of visits to various Indian tribes (he had been fascinated with the subject since childhood) and from 1837 to 1845 he exhibited the resulting paintings at the ‘Gallery of Indians’ in the USA and Europe. He was better received in England and France than in his native country (
Baudelaire
wrote about him enthusiastically) and he lived in Europe from 1858 to 1870. In addition to his paintings, he published various illustrated books on Indian life. Most of his work is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

 
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(active 1273–1308).
Italian painter and mosaic designer, active mainly in Rome, where he must have been the leading artist of his day. His two major surviving works are mosaics of the
Life of the Virgin
(Sta Maria in Trastevere, signed and dated 1291) and a fragmentary fresco cycle, the most important part of which is a
Last Judgement
(Sta Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome). In 1308 Cavallini was in Naples serving the Angevin kings, and was probably responsible for the design and possibly some of the execution of a fresco cycle in Sta Maria Donnaregina. Although he is such an obscure figure, Cavallini occupies an important place in the history of Italian painting. He was the first artist to make a significant break with the stylization of
Byzantine art
, and his majestic figures have a real sense of weight and three-dimensionality. His work undoubtedly influenced his great contemporary
Giotto
, whose
Last Judgement
in the Arena Chapel at Padua features Apostles enthroned exactly as in Cavallini's fresco of the subject.

 
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