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Biography of Nicolas de StaëlName: Nicolas de StaëlBirth Date: January 5, 1914 Death Date: March 16, 1955 Place of Birth: St. Petersburg, Russia Nationality: French Gender: Male Occupations: painter Nicolas de Staël The French painter Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955) was a major painter of the School of Paris. His work is characterized by a simplification of forms and the application of paint in thick slabs.Nicolas de Staël was born on Jan. 5, 1914, in St. Petersburg, the son of a wealthy baron. Nicolas's mother encouraged him to draw and paint at a very early age. In 1919 the Russian Revolution forced the family into exile in Poland. Within 2 years his parents were dead, and Nicolas was sent to Brussels to study humanities. In 1932 he entered the Royal Academy of Art there.During the 1930s Staël embarked on a series of travels to see as many kinds of art as possible. In the Netherlands he was particularly impressed by the works of Rembrandt and Jan Vermeer, and in Paris he was very moved by the paintings of Paul Cé…showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…That year he executed a series of paintings of football players. He began to paint directly from nature and, greatly influenced by Gustave Courbet, developed a highly personal style of landscape painting. Staël applied brilliant flat colors with a minimum of detail to suggest the essence of a vista; this suggestive simplification of a recognizable scene was one of his contributions to the development of modern painting. It is exemplified in Landscape, Sky, Blue and Gray (1953).A dedicated artist who lived for painting, Staël had achieved wealth and fame when, on March 16, 1955, he committed suicide in Antibes. Further Reading The best book on Staël, a thoughtful analysis of his life and work, is Douglas Cooper, Nicholas de Staël (1961). Roger van Gindertael, Nicolas de Staël (1960; trans. 1961), is a brief but perceptive appreciation and critique by one of Staël's friends. |