Researching the Famous Artists

A great deal of time and research has gone into each of the biographies and many of the paintings shared on The Famous Artists.

I make every attempt to only include information that I can verify as true. Where there is some doubt or conflicting opinions, I will make it clear that the information is in dispute. I apologize in advance if I attribute a painting to the wrong artist. After all, even a number of the world’s most famous museums put disclaimers on much of their information. Even the experts have incorrectly attributed paintings to the wrong artist.

That said, my list of sources was growing so fast as to already be unmanageable after only 21 artist biographies had been completed. I had originally planned to include my ever-growing list of sources for biographical information on each of the artists to allow others to either continue my research or just to prove that the information provided on The Famous Artists is not another site simply cutting and pasting words from Wikipedia. Don’t get me wrong, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons have been invaluable in creating this site but many are trying to make a profit by simply copying those great sites.

Unfortunately, building a list of sources for the sake of building a bibliography that will most likely go unused just isn’t something I see as being productive.

However, I want to show anyone visiting The Famous Artists that the information presented here stems from original research. With that in mind, I’ve included the sources I used in creating the Biography of Douglas Volk and several of his painting descriptions to show the type of research that goes into this site.

The list is in alphabetical order by source.

Coburn, Frederick W. “Art Movements of Today.” The National Magazine, Volume 18, 1903: 488.

“Douglas Volk.” National Gallery of Art .

Cox, Kenyon. “Some American Figure-Painters.” Cosmopolitan, Volume 32, April, 1902: 596.

Luckey, G.W.A. “Child Study Department.” The North Western Monthly, Volume IX 1899: 390-391 and 396-400.

Maine Library Bulletin, Vol. XIII. July-October, 1927: 21-22.

National Cyclopedia of American Biographies, Vol. VII New York, 1897.

Smith, Elsie May. “A Lovable Boy.” School Arts Magazine Volume XIII, September, 1913.: 668-671.

West, Max PH.D. “The Revival of Handicrafts in America.” Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, Issue 55, November 1904:1574-1598.

Weston, Rachel. “A Revival of the Hand Loom.” Good Housekeeping Vol. XXXIII.: 178-180.

The following Wikipedia and Wikimedia entries were used as primary and secondary source materials:

Lloyd George
World War I
Douglas Volk on Wikimedia

(At the time I wrote the biography of Douglas Volk, Wikipedia’s entry for the artist consisted of three sentences – it provided virtually no information to complete his biography.)

By the way, this list doesn’t include the huge variety of resources used to find pictures of the paintings.