Norman Rockwell

popular name: Winslow Homer

date_of_death: September 29, 1910

age: 74

cause_of_death: Heart failure

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates set what was then an American art record when he bought Winslow Homer's "Lost on the Grand Banks" for $36 million in 1998.

popular name: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

date_of_death: March 30, 1842

age: 86

cause_of_death: Ill health due to stroke

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was one of the great portrait artists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, easily the equal of Quentin de La Tour or Jean Baptiste Greuze. Born into relatively modest circumstances, she firmly established herself in society’s upper crust. After earning the favours of the king and his family, she became the official artist of Queen Marie Antoinette. One of the most successful women artists (unusually so for her time), particularly noted for her portraits of women, her father and first teacher, Louis Vigée, was a noted portraitist who worked chiefly in pastels. Her great opportunity came in 1779 when she was summoned to Versailles to paint a portrait of Queen Marie-Antoinette. The two women became friends, and in subsequent years Vigée-Lebrun painted more than 20 portraits of Marie-Antoinette in a great variety of poses and costumes. She also painted a great number of self-portraits, in the style of various artists whose work she admired. During her 60+ years as an artist, Le Brun created 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to many works in private collections, her paintings are owned by major museums such as the Louvre in Paris, Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, National Gallery in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and many other collections in Europe and the United States. Since 1999 the record price for an original Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun at auction is $7,185,900 USD for Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan (full-length holding his sword in a landscape).

popular name: Hugo Pratt

date_of_death: August 20, 1995

age: 68

cause_of_death: Bowel cancer

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Hugo Pratt is considered one of the greatest graphic novelists in the world. His strips, graphic works, and watercolors have been exhibited in major museums such as the Grand Palais and Pinacothèque in Paris, the Vittoriano in Rome, and Ca ‘Pesaro in Venice. Pratt was known for combining strong storytelling with extensive historical research on works such as Corto Maltese. From 1970 to 1984 Pratt lived in France where Corto Maltese was immensely popular where his comic book was published by the local publisher, Pif Gadget, and later translated in fifteen different languages. From 1984 to 1995 Pratt lived in Switzerland where the international success that Corto Maltese continued to grow. In France, most of his pre-Corto Maltese works were published in several album editions by publishers such as Casterman, Dargaud, and Humanoides Associés. Often referred to as "The Picasso of Comics" Pratt was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2005.