Maria Hadfield Cosway (1760 - 1838)

Artist. Born Maria Louisa Catherine Cecilia Hadfield in Florence, Italy to English parents. Convent educated, her talent for art was recognized early and she studied both in Italy and England. At nineteen she was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. She traveled to England at the invitation of Angelica Kauffman […]

Pancho Cossío (1894 - 1970)

Artist. He was born Francisco Gutiérrez Cossío in Santiago de Baños, Cuba. Soon, his family moved to Spain. He studied with Ceclio Pla and was friend of Francisco Bores. His first exhibition was in 1919. In 1923, he moved to Paris, where knew the painters Picasso, Ismael de la Serna, Hernando Viñes, Togores and María […]

Jean Pierre Cortot (1787 - 1843)

Sculptor. Born in Paris, France, he was a 19th Century artist noted for his classical persons and monument sculptors. In 1809, he won the Prix de Rome while residing in Italy, returned to France in 1813, was appointed a professor at the École, was made a member of the Academy of des beaux Arts in […]

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796 - 1875)

Artist. Born in Paris in 1796. His family were bourgeois people, his father was a wigmaker and his mother a milliner and unlike the experience of some of his artistic colleagues, throughout his life he never felt the want of money, as his parents made good investments and ran their businesses well. After his parents […]

Joseph Cornell (1903 - 1972)

Avant-garde Sculptor,  Filmaker.  A pioneer of assemblage art,  he is noted for his boxes created with collages and found objects.  He took old photographs, images of exotic birds, bits of fabric,  miniature toys, and other discarded bric-a-brac and arranged them into enigmatic compositions.  A typical Cornell box is fronted with glass and evokes an overall […]

Pompeo Coppini (1870 - 1957)

Artist. Nationally known sculptor who sculptured the Alamo Cenotaph, busts of many famous Texans, Confederates, and other Americans. In all, he is represented in the United States by thirty-six public monuments, sixteen portrait statues, and about seventy-five portrait busts.  Family links:  Spouse:  Elizabeth di  Barbieri Coppini (1875 – 1957)* *Calculated relationship

Andrea Palma (1903 - 1987)

Actress. She was born in Durango, Mexico. She began her career on stage. During a time in Hollywood with his cousin Ramón Novarro, she was the hatter of Marlene Dietrich and later, she worked there in several films. With the time, she become a diva of Mexican cinema. Among other films, she appeared in “La […]

John Singleton Copley (1738 - 1815)

American Artist. Copley was born on July 3, 1738, in Bostonto Irish immigrant parents Mary Singleton and Richard Copley. He began to paint in about 1753. He made use of the rococo device called portrait d’apparat, portraying the subject with objects associated with his daily life, that gave his work a distinction not usually found […]

Thomas Sidney Cooper (1803 - 1902)

English artist.  His early life was marred by poverty. He was educated at the Royal Academy schools, where he was encouraged by Sir Thomas Lawrence.  In 1827 he moved to Brussels where he taught art. At this time he met the animal painter Verboeckhoven, who strongly influenced his work. In 1831 Cooper returned to London, […]

Natalia Pavlovna Wilson Paley (1905 - 1981)

Russian Royalty. The first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II, she was the daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich by his second wife Princess Olga Paley. When she was still a young girl she had to escape from Russia due to the Revolution (her father and her brother Vladimir were murdered by the Bolsheviks) and went […]

Emma Lampert Cooper (1855 - 1920)

Artist. Studied with William Merritt Chase in New York City, painted many famous scenes of Brittany and Holland. Exhibited at several national expositions including Chicago in 1893, St. Louis in 1904 and San Diego in 1916. Married to painter Colin Campbell Cooper. (bio by: Mount Hope NY)

Edwin Cooper (1874 - 1942)

Sir Edwin Cooper RA designed many famous buildings in London including Marylebone Town Hall, Lloyds Underwriters in Leadenhall Street, HQ Port of London Authority in Trinity Square EC3, the College of Nursing in Henrietta Street W1 and the Port of London Buildings at Tilbury Dock. He received the Gold medal for Architecture in 1931. (bio […]

Abraham Cooper (1970 - 1868)

Artist. Born in London, England, he was a expressive 19th Century painter known for his racehorse, sporting and military battle portraits. At the age of twenty-two he became a pupil of artist Benjamin Marhsall and in 1809, he was a contributing artist for “The Sporting Magazine”. In 1813, he painted his first painting for the […]

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (1844 - 1934)

Artist. Coolidge was a drugstore owner, painter, bank owner and inventor. He painted the famous Dogs Playing Poker, started the first bank in Antwerp, New York along with invented carnival “cut-outs,” wood props with painted figures on them that you can stick your face through. Coolidge married Gertrude Kimmell in 1909 at the age of […]

Gordon Conway (1894 - 1956)

During a brief but prolific twenty-two-year career (1915-37), she won international acclaim in the fields of commercial graphic art and costume design for stage and film in New York, London, and Paris. She made around 5,000 finished drawings, designed graphics and costumes for at least 119 stage productions for both theater and cabaret, and costumed […]

John Constable (1776 - 1837)

Artist. Born at East Bergholt, Suffolk, the son of a prosperous merchant. After several years in the family business, he went to London in 1799 to study at the Royal Academy. In 1802 he exhibited at the Academy for the first time and he refused the position of drawing master at Great Marlow Military College. […]

Pietro Consagra (1920 - 2005)

Italian Abstract Sculptor. He was born in Mazara del Vallo (Sicily) and died in Milan. He is best known for his works in iron and bronze. He moved to Rome in the mid-1940s and co-founded a group named “Forma.” Consagra was also an essayist and art critic. He published “La Necessita della Scultura” and an […]

Paul Conrad (1924 - 2010)

Political Cartoonist. A controversial legend in his field, he saw himself as a defender of the common man and savagely skewered those in power for nearly 60 years, to the delight or outrage of his readers. He is probably best remembered for his takes on the Vietnam War,  the Watergate scandal,  and the Reagan era. […]

Bruce Conner (1933 - 2008)

Artist and filmmaker. Born in in McPherson, Kansas, he was world renowned as a pioneering collage filmmaker and Beat-era assemblage artist,  recognized for his work in many creative disciplines. His gauzy assemblages of scraps salvaged from abandoned buildings, nylon stockings, doll parts, and other found materials initially gained him art-world attention. Best remembered for his […]

Maidie Norman (1912 - 1998)

African American Actress who is best remembered for her role as the determined housekeeper in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,” the Joan Crawford/Bette Davis thriller. (bio by: Pecan Pie)

Clyde Dixon Connell (1901 - 1998)

Sculptress, primitive artist and civil rights advocate. Featured in People magazine and on PBS and was the subject of at least two books. Her works were featured in the show “Different Drummers” at the Hirschhorn Museum of Art at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and in the “The Dream of Egypt” at the Centro […]

Josiah Conder (1852 - 1920)

Architect. Originally from England, Conder was invited to Japan in 1977 to teach architecture. He trained most of the major Japanese architects of the Meiji era and designed buildings that included the Tokyo Imperial Museum, the Rokumeikan and the St. Nikolai Cathedral. (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett)

Alban Jasper Conant (1821 - 1915)

Portrait painter, author, preacher and teacher. Conant is best known for his famous “Smiling Lincoln” portraits. Upon seeing his first painting, Mary Todd Lincoln was quoted as saying “That is excellent. That is the way he looks when he has his friends about him!” That portrait now hangs in Lovejoy Library at Southern Illinois University. […]

Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (1869 - 1958)

Architect,  Interior Designer. She has been called “the architect of the Southwest” for her rough-hewn designs,  which combined Spanish and Native American influences with a contemporary spirit.  She was educated at the California School of Design in San Francisco. In 1901 the Fred Harvey Company offered her a job decorating its landmark Alvarado Hotel in […]

Charles Allston Collins (1828 - 1873)

Arist, Author. Born in Hampstead, North London, he was the second son of William Collins, R.A., who is buried in St, Mary’s Church in Paddington Green. Like his elder brother, the author William Wilkie Collins, Charles was named after a painter, Washington Allston of Massachussetts. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools and, in 1847, […]

John Maier Collier (1850 - 1934)

Artist. English painter and writer. The younger son of Sir Robert Perret Collier (later Lord Monkswell), Collier and was educated at Eton College. After being introduced to the artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, he studied at the Slade School of Art in London, under Edward Poynter, before moving to Paris where he studied under Jean-Paul Laurens […]

Anne Ward Murphy (1970 - 2003)

Actress. Born in Long Island, New York, she received a master’s degree in speech and education from Adelphi University, and later became a professor at Suffolk Community College, all while acting at the same time. She appeared in several stage plays including, “Snow White” “A Funny Thing Happened” “Can’t Take It With You” “A Chorus […]

Matilde Muñoz Sampedro (1899 - 1969)

Actress. Member of a long family of stage and screen actors. She was born and died in Madrid (Spain). She developed her career on Stage and Screen. On stage, she appeared in “La Novia de Reverte (1933), “Casi un Cuento de Hadas” (1953) or “El Patio” (1953). In 1918, she married to actor Rafael Bardem […]

Frederic Edwin Church (1826 - 1900)

Artist. Specialized in, and is most famous for, painting realistic tropical landscapes. Some of his works are “Cotopaxi” (1854), “The Heart of the Andes” (1859), “Aurora Borealis” (1865) and “Aegean Sea” (1871). “Cotopaxi” presently hangs in the New York City Public Libraries Gallery, and “Aegean Sea” is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (bio by: […]

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (1726 - 1801)

Painter. Largely self-taught, Daniel achieved his first popular success with the sentimental painting The Parting of Jean Calas from His Family (1767), which shows the influence of Greuze. He began engraving in 1758. The bulk of his work was in illustrating scientific books by Basedow, Buffon, Lavater, Pestalozzi and others. He also painted many portraits […]