No 410 Romare Bearden

“What you don’t need is just as important as what you do need.” Romare Bearden, an African-American artist who worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils and collages, was born on September 2, 1911.

No 409 Helen Levitt

“ I never had a “project.” I would go out and shoot, follow my eyes—what they noticed, I tried to capture with my camera, for others to see.” Helen Levitt, an American photographer who was particularly noted for street photography  around New York City, and who has been called “the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time”, was born on August 31, 1913.

No 408 Man Ray

“It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.” Man Ray, a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, was born on August 27, 1890 in Philadelphia.

No 407 Emil Nolde

“Clever people master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties.” Emil Nolde, a German-Danish painter and printmaker and one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, was born on August 7, 1867.

No 406 Andy Warhol

“I am a deeply superficial person.” Andy Warhol, an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art and whose works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s, was born on August 6, 1928.

No 405 Naum Gabo

“The image my work invokes is the image of good – not evil; the image of order – not chaos; the image of life – not death. And that is all the content of my constructions amounts to.” Naum Gabo, a prominent Russian sculptor in the Constructivism movement, was born Naum Neemia Pevsner on 5th August 1890.

No 404 Thomas Moran

“Of all places on earth the great canyon of Arizona is the most inspiring in its pictorial possibilities.” Thomas Moran. This evening I’ve been at an exhibition opening at the Portico Library in Manchester. One of the speakers stressed the effect of Bolton-born Moran on American history when he showed his paintings of the wild frontier to the people of the eastern states. They did not realise what their country had in the west. It ultimately lead to the establishment of Yellowstone as the first national park.

I have been very good. I was tempted to have a blank picture today which had the quote across the middle “Error 404 Art Quote Not Found”.

No 403 Hedda Sterne

“I have a feeling that in art the need to understand and the need to communicate are one.” Hedda Sterne, an artist best remembered as the only woman in a famous photograph of a group of Abstract Expressionists known as “The Irascibles”, was born on August 4, 1910. In her artistic endeavors she created a body of work known for exhibiting a stubborn independence from styles and trends, including Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, with which she is often associated.

A photograph of 15 of the so-called Irascibles, taken by Nina Leen on November 24, 1950 and published in Life magazine on January 15, 1951. Front row: Theodore Stamos, Jimmy Ernst, Barnett Newman, James Brooks, and Mark Rothko; middle row: Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, and Bradley Walker Tomlin; back row: Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, and Hedda Sterne.

No 402 Arthur Dove

“I can claim no background except perhaps the woods, running streams, hunting, fishing, camping, the sky…” Arthur Dove, an early American modernist, often considered the first American abstract painter, was born on August 2, 1880.

No 401 Alexej von Jawlensky

“The artist expresses only what he has within himself, not what he sees with his eyes.” Alexej von Jawlensky, a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany was a key member of the New Munich Artist’s Association (Neue Künstlervereinigung München), Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group and later the Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four).