Artists & Designers

René Jules Lalique (1860-1945)

GENERAL DESCRIPTION
René Jules Lalique was one of the foremost designers of Art Nouveau and moderne jewelry and glass.  He began his career as a jewelry designer, establishing a workshop in 1885 and creating novel works in the latest styles.  In 1892, he began to incorporate glass, typically cast, into his jewelry designs.  After opening his first retail shop in 1905, he was commissioned by perfumer François Coty to

Severin Roesen (1816-1872)

GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Severin Roesen is considered one of the most important American still life painter of the mid-19th century. His oeuvre and style form a bridge between the talented Peale family (notably James, Rembrandt, and Raphaelle Peale) of the colonial and federal periods, and William Michael Harnett and John Frederick Peto, who flourished in the final quarter of the century.

Akobi Ogun Fakeye (c. 1870-1946)

GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Sculptor Akobi Ogun Fakeye's name means "the first-born of Ogun." Ogun is the Yoruba god of iron and the patron saint of woodcarvers. Akobi Ogun (c. 1870-1946) was the son of a sculptor but chose not to carve. According to his son Lamidi Olonade Fakeye (b. 1925), an internationally known sculptor whose work is installed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Akobi Ogun contracted smallpox when he was about twenty years old.

Ramón Casas (1866-1932)

GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Born into a wealthy Catalan family, the Spanish painter Ramón Casas first studied under Joan Vicens Cots (1830–1886). Early in 1881, Casas published one of his drawings in the Barcelonan magazine L’Avenç, and later that year he moved to Paris. There he enrolled in the atelier of the acclaimed artist Carolus-Duran (1837-1917) and studied at the Académie Gervex. Casas' early efforts in Paris received a lukewarm reception from critics who were underwhelmed by his work's sketchy luminous qualities; it was deemed too avant-garde.

Voania Muba and the European Market for African Goods

GENERAL DESCRIPTION
African artists have supplied the European expatriate and export markets with merchandise for at least five centuries. Such artistic production began in the 15th century on Africa's west coast, where Portuguese explorers and seamen first encountered Africans. Europeans' curiosity about the voyagers' exotic souvenirs from Africa may have encouraged trade.