A Passion for the Arts in St. Louis

(September 17, 1783 – February 10, 1852) Samuel Prout was a British watercolourist, and one of the masters of watercolour architectural painting. Prout secured the position of Painter in Water-Colours in Ordinary to King George IV in 1829 and afterwards to Queen Victoria. John Ruskin, whose work often emulated Prout’s, wrote in 1844, “Sometimes I tire of Turner, but never of…

(September 16, 1887 – June 7, 1966) Jean Arp, also called Hans Arp, original names Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp and Jean-Pierre Guillaume Arp, French sculptor, painter, and poet who was one of the leaders of the European avant-garde in the arts during the first half of the 20th century. Arp was of French Alsatian and German ancestry, and, thus, his parents gave…

(born September 15, 1943) Walter Iooss Jr. is an American photographer noted for his images of athletes, including Michael Jordan, Kelly Slater, Tiger Woods, Scottie Pippen, and Muhammad Ali. He has been called “the poet laureate of sports.” Iooss began his career shooting for Sports Illustrated and contributed to the magazine for more than 50 years. He also photographed for the magazine’s Swimsuit Issue…

(September 14, 1911 – August 17, 1987) Leon Berkowitz was an American artist and educator. He is best known for his color field paintings and the series, The Unities. He co-founded the Washington Workshop Center, a gallery and school. Berkowitz was a leading member of the art movement, the Washington Color School. Berkowitz did not like the label…

(September 13, 1928 – May 19, 2018) Robert Indiana was an American artist associated with the pop art movement. His iconic image LOVE was first created in 1964 in the form of a card which he sent to several friends and acquaintances in the art world. In 1965, Robert Indiana was invited to propose an artwork to be featured…

(September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) Ben Shahn was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content. Shahn was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, to Jewish parents Joshua Hessel and Gittel (Lieberman) Shan. His father was exiled to Siberia for possible revolutionary activities…

(September 11, 1904 – July 14, 1996) Daniel Brustlein (1904–1996) was an Alsatian-born American artist, cartoonist, illustrator, and author of children’s books. He is best known for the cartoons and cover art he contributed to The New Yorker magazine under the pen name “Alain” from the 1930s through the 1950s. The novelist John Updike once said his childhood discovery of Brustlein’s cartoons…

(September 10, 1860 – February 6, 1938) Marianne von Werefkin, born Marianna Wladimirowna Werewkina (transliteration Marianna Vladimirovna Verëvkina), was a Russian-German-Swiss Expressionist painter. Marianne von Werefkin was born in the Russian town of Tula as the daughter of the commander of the Ekaterinaburg Regiment. She had her first private academic drawing lessons at the age of fourteen. In…

Louis Marak was born in 1942 in Shawnee, Oklahoma.  In 1965 he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Crafts from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.  He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in ceramics in 1967 from Alfred University in New York. From 1967 to 1969 he was an Instructor of Art at…

(Born September 8, 1949) Martin Stupich was trained in painting and sculpture in Milwaukee at the Layton School of Art. In the early ‘70s he studied photography with Emmet Gowin in Ohio. Then, after 2 years as a steel worker back in Milwaukee, he moved to Atlanta to earn a master’s degree in photography from…