Featured Artists' Biographies (F)

View more information, larger images and other works of art by Giovanni Battista Falda.

Giovanni Battista Falda (Valduggia, 1643 - Rome, 1678): Showing artistic gifts at an early age, Giovanni Battista Falda studied art in his native town under the painter, Francisco Ferrari. At the age of fourteen he traveled to Rome where he was soon employed by the publisher, Giacomo de Rossi. Concentrating almost solely upon architectural views, Falda's recorded opus runs to 298 original etchings. Most of these works of art are found in his three greatest sets of etchings, the Nuovo Teatro (1665-1669), The Gardens of Rome (1670), and The Fountains of Rome (1675).

Falda's artistic style was quite unlike any other mid seventeenth century Italian etcher or engraver. His strong contrasts of light and shade, his architectural accuracy and the care he took delineating incidental figures and objects have led scholars to compare his etchings most frequently to those of his great French contemporaries, Jacques Callot and Israel Silvestre. Falda's influence upon Italian architectural art was far reaching. In the following generations such great etchers as Venturini, Alessandro Specchi and Guiseppi Vasi were directly inspired by Falda's art. It was Falda, in fact, who created the foundation for the great school of Italian eighteenth century architectural etching, most notably led by Piranesi.

View more information, larger images and other works of art by Ernest Fiene.

Ernest Fiene (Elberfeld, Germany, 1894 - Connecticut, 1965): A fine American painter and lithographic artist, Ernest Fiene came to the United States as a young boy. He received his artistic education at the prestigious National Academy of Design as well as studying under Joseph Pennell and Charles Wheeler Locke at the Art Students' League of New York. It was at this latter institution that Fiene first experimented in the art of lithography. This medium would play a major role in his entire artistic career.

Ernest Fiene's first published lithographs date from the mid 1920's. During the next two decades his lithographic landscape and city views were highly acclaimed throughout the United States. Along with such famous artists as Rockwell Kent and Lynd Ward, Fiene was at the forefront of American Art Deco -- the influential movement that emphasized elements of design and decoration. Thus his original lithographs today are as much in demand as when they were first created.

View more information, larger images and other works of art by Herbert Lewis Fink.

Fink, Herbert Lewis 'Herbert Fink' (Born, Providence, Rhode Island, 1921 - Died, Rockport, Maine, 2006): An outstanding twentieth century landscape and figure artist, Herbert Fink has produced many fine paintings and drawings but is today most strongly regarded for his superb etchings, watercolors and drawings of the female nude. He first enrolled at the Art Students' League of New York (1941-1942) and then served in the U.S. Army in France during the Second World War. Following the end of the war Fink resumed his artistic training and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1948. He then taught drawing and design at the University of Kansas (1949) and at the Albright-Knox Art School, Buffalo, New York (1950). A year later he resigned to accept the Chaloner Fellowship which enabled him to travel and study in Europe.

Herbert Fink's first one man exhibition of his art took place in 1962. Since that time his work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions such as Ohio State University (1969), Cornell University (1978), the San Diego Museum of Art (1979), the University of Mississippi (1981) and the Republic of China (1986). The original drawings and etchings of Herbert Fink are included in the following collections; the Georgia Museum of Art, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, Yale University Art Gallery, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Trishuvan University, Nepal, Liaoning University, China, Chinese University, Hong Kong and Escola de Bela Artes, Bahia, Brazil.

View more information and larger image for Brother Can You Spare A Dime by Kathleen Macy Finn.

Kathleen Macy Finn (New York, 1896 - 1978): A very well recognized American etcher, Kathleen Macy Finn studied at the Art Students League of New York under George Bridgman and the 'dean of American printmakers', Joseph Pennell. She began to exhibit her original etchings in 1923 and during the following years her art was included in many major exhibitions both in the United States and in London and Paris. She was equally adept at landscape, architectural and figure study etchings. Major American institutions that include examples of Finn's original etchings in their collections are the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, Pennsylvania State University, the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

View more information and larger image for August Fischer's original drawing, Linaria.

August Fischer (Copenhagen, 1854 - Vienna, 1921): Born in Denmark, August Fischer studied painting and drawing at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen. He first exhibited his watercolours and paintings there in 1876 and shortly thereafter began to travel throughout Europe, particularly to Italy, Germany and Austria. Fischer eventually settled in Vienna (c. 1885) and became most highly regarded for his watercolours of landscapes, genre scenes and botanical studies. In this latter category, Fischer was commissioned for both still life scenes and for the more scientific field of botanical illustration. Linaria is a fine example of this artist's work in the area of botanical illustration.

View more information and larger image for The Temple of Juno at Girgenti, Sicily by Sir William Russell Flint.

Sir William Russell Flint (Edinburgh, 1880 - London, 1969): One of Britain's most famous twentieth century artists, Sir William Russell Flint was an accomplished watercolourist, illustrator and printmaker. Educated at Edinburgh's Royal Institute of Art, Flint settled in London in 1900. He first worked as an illustrative artist on the staff of the Illustrated London News (1903-1907) before turning almost exclusively to the medium of watercolour, particularly for the illustration of books. Russell Flint was appointed an Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1914 (ARWS) and a full member in 1917 (RWS). In 1936 he was elected President of that institution. He was also elected to the Royal Academy in 1933 and was knighted by the King in 1947.

View more information and other works of art by Jean Louis Forain.

Jean Louis Forain (Reims, 1852 - Paris, 1931): One of France's greatest artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jean-Louis Forain was equally accomplished as a painter, watercolourist, lithographer and as an etcher. Forain's accomplishments as an original etcher may be classified into two eras; the early period (1875 - 1890), in which he created thirty etchings or drypoints, and the later period (1902 - 1923), in which he produced one hundred and forty-five etchings.

In 1876 Forain was a young member of an artistic group that frequently met at the Cafe de la Nouvelle Athenes at the Place Pigalle, Paris. Other members and associates included such artists as Manet, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro and sometimes Monet and Cezanne. Cezanne showed great interest in Forain's early work and kept a number of the young artist's illustrations pinned to the wall of his studio. The most important friendship formed in this period of Forain's career, however, was with Edgar Degas ((1834 - 1917). The two artists worked together on many occasions at this time, painting and drawing dancers, nudes and scenes from Parisian theaters and cafes.

View more information and larger image for Philipp Franck's original engraving, Lion Hunt.

Philipp Franck (Frankfurt, 1860 - Berlin, 1944): A major German etcher, engraver and painter of the early twentieth century, Philipp Franck first studied art in Frankfurt under E. von Stein and H. Hasselhorst (1877-1879). He then continued and finished his education in Kronberg, under Anton Burger (1879-1881) and in Dusseldorf, under Gebhard and Drucker. Franck remained in Dusseldorf for the following seven years and became an established artist of landscapes, portraits and figure studies.

In 1888 Philipp Franck accepted a teaching position at the Royal Art School in Berlin. He later became a Professor there ( in 1898) and its Director (in 1915). He maintained this latter, influential position until his retirement in 1933. Philipp Franck's years in Berlin were very eventful. There he was a founding member of the famous 'Berlin Secession' The foundation of the Berlin Secession (1898) was the first open revolt against academic traditions and paved the way for the creation of modern German art movements, such as Expressionism. Franck was a regular participant in Secessionist exhibitions. As well, during this time he formed friendships and associations with other leading German artists, most notably, Lovis Corinth and Max Lieberman. Today, examples of Franck's art may be seen in major public museums in Rostock, Charlottenburg and Berlin.

View more information and larger image for Sepp Frank's original etching, The Old Palace, Venice.

Sepp Frank (Germany, 1889 - 1970): A twentieth century German etcher and lithographer, Sepp Frank studied art in both Frankfort and Munich. His art was first exhibited in Germany shortly after the end of World War 1 (1918). Besides creating a number of fine individual etchings, Frank also illustrated books such as Shakespeare's Hamlet (1936), The Tales of Hoffmann (1927) and Goethe's Ballads (1925). He was also a leading designer of ex-libris bookplates and in this field it is estimated that he created over 300 works of miniature art. Many of these are considered masterworks of art deco ex-libris design. Today the art of Sepp Frank is included in many major public and private collections; not only in Germany but in such wide ranging institutions as the University of California at Berkeley and in the Athenaeum Museum of Finland.

View more information and larger image for Eric Fraser's original pen and ink drawing, Twon by a River.

Eric Fraser (Westminster, 1902 - Penn's Place, Hampton, 1983): For a period of over fifty working years, Eric Fraser was one of England's most distinguished illustrative artists. Showing great artistic talent as a teenager he won a scholarship to Goldsmith's School of Art, London, in 1919. Goldsmith's boasted a rich bounty of great teachers, but none impressed Fraser as much as Edmund Sullivan (1869-1933), one of Britain's finest book illustrators of the early twentieth century. Fraser shared Sullivan's enthusiasm for pen and ink art and the belief in the importance of line as an "expression of the essential form in the simplest and most direct manner." * When the older master fell ill in 1923 he asked Fraser to take charge of his class. (Sylvia Backmeyer, Eric Fraser: Designer & Illustrator, London, Lund Humphries, 1998).

Eric Fraser illustrated his first book in 1927 and during the following years was responsible for such classics as, Complete Works of Shakespeare (Collins, 1950), The Reign of Nero (Folio Society, 1952), The Ephesian Story (Golden Cockerel Press, 1957), The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (Folio Society, 1958), The Art of Love (Limited Editions Club, 1971), Joan of Arc (Oxford University Press, 1974) and Tolkein's, The Lord of the Rings (Folio Society, 1977). Fraser also illustrated well over one hundred book jackets for first edition novels from such authors as Alex Waugh and J. B. Priestley.