Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Chrysler Building, in midtown Manhattan, New York City, at Lexington Ave. between 42d and 43d St. The ultimate art deco-style skyscraper, it was commissioned by Walter P. Chrysler, designed by William...

(Encyclopedia) Klein, Yves, 1928–62, French painter. With critic Pierre Restany, he was a leader of the avant-garde movement called Nouveau Réalisme (founded 1960). In the 1950s Klein began to work in monochromes...

(Encyclopedia) Banksy, pseud. of an English graffiti artist, c.1974–, probably b. Bristol. He painted on walls, bridges, and the like in Bristol and London in the 1990s before he began to use (c.2000) stencils and...

(Encyclopedia) Parnassians pärnăsˈēənz [key], group of 19th-century French poets, so called from their journal the Parnasse contemporain. Issued from 1866 to 1876, it included poems of Leconte de Lisle, Banvill...

(Encyclopedia) Pellan, Alfred älfrĕdˈ pĕläNˈ [key], 1906–88, Canadian painter, b. Quebec. Pellan sold his painting Corner of Old Quebec to the National Gallery, Ottawa, when he was 16. He lived in Paris from...

(Encyclopedia) Staffordshire Hoard, archaelogical find discovered (2009) near Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, consisting of more than 1,500 gold and silver items dating from Anglo-Saxon times. Several times riche...

(Encyclopedia) Dogon dōgänˈ [key], African people who live on the bend of the Niger River in the Republic of Mali in West Africa. A patrilineal, sedentary agricultural people, they number over 360,000. They depen...

(Encyclopedia) Bramantino brämäntēˈnō [key], c.1465–c.1535, Lombard painter and architect. His real name was Bartolomeo Suardi. He took the name of his master Bramante, whose style he followed closely. He bec...

(Encyclopedia) Cennini, Cennino chān-nēˈnō chān-nēˈnē [key], c.1370–1440, Florentine painter, follower of Agnolo Gaddi. None of his paintings is extant. He is most famous for having written the Libro dell'...

(Encyclopedia) Smith College, at Northampton, Mass.; undergraduate for women, graduate coeducational; chartered 1871, opened 1875 through a bequest of Sophia Smith. The first president, Laurenus Clark Seelye, was in...