Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Raja Ravi Varma

 Raja Ravi Varma (April 29, 1848 - October 2, 1906): Indian painter from the princely state of Travancore who achieved recognition for his depiction of scenes from the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. His paintings are considered to be among the best examples of the fusion of Indian traditions with the techniques of European academic art. His exposure in the west came when he won the first prize in the Vienna Art Exhibition in 1873. He is considered among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art. Most famous paintings: GajLukshmi, Saraswati, Shivaji @ wikipedia.org



Monday, November 28, 2011

F. N. Souza


Francis Newton Souza (April 12, 1924 - March 28, 2002), was an Indian artist. He was a founding member of the Progressive Artists' Group of Bombay, and was the first post-independence Indian artist to achieve high recognition in the West. According to The Times of India Souza's expressionistic style sought to illustrate both low-life and high energy, "Be it the sluts or the suits, the seamy side of life or the steamy, the gnomish, pox-scarred boy from Goa who went on to become one of the first Indian artists to be feted in the salons of Europe, laid it bare. @wikipedia.org



Thursday, August 4, 2011

Homai Vyarawalla

Homai Vyarawalla (born 1913), is India's first woman photojournalist.
She started her career in 1930s and thereafter received noticed at the national level when she moved to Mumbai in 1942 with her family, before moving to Delhi where in the next thirty years she shot many political and national leaders, including Gandhi, Nehru, Indira Gandhi and the Nehru-Gandhi family working as a press photographer. At the onset of the World War II, she started working on assignments of the Bombay based The Illustrated Weekly of India magazine which over the years till 1970, published many of her black and white images, which later became iconic. @WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Louis Kahn

Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky) (February 20, 1901 or 1902 – March 17, 1974) was a world-renowned American architect of Estonian Jewish origin, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. Influenced by ancient ruins, Kahn's style tends to the monumental and monolithic; his heavy buildings do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled. Louis Kahn's works are considered as monumental beyond modernism. @Wikipedia.org

Le Corbusier

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, with his buildings constructed throughout central Europe, India, Russia, one in North and several in South America.
He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities.
Le Corbusier adopted his pseudonym in the 1920s, allegedly deriving it in part from the name of a distant ancestor, "Lecorbésier." However, it appears to have been an earlier (and somewhat unkind) nickname, which he simply decided to keep.

Frank Lloyd Wright

.Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 projects, which resulted in more than 500 completed works. Wright promoted organic architecture (exemplified by Fallingwater), was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture (exemplified by the Robie House, the Westcott House, and the Darwin D. Martin House), and developed the concept of the Usonian home (exemplified by the Rosenbaum House). His work includes original and innovative examples of many different building types, including offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums. Wright also often designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass.
Wright authored 20 books and many articles, and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. His colorful personal life often made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire and murders at his Taliesin studio.
Already well-known during his lifetime, Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time"@Wikipedia.org

Friday, May 27, 2011

Fritjof Capra

Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist. He is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, and is on the faculty of Schumacher College.
Capra is the author of several books, including The Tao of Physics (1975), The Turning Point (1982), Uncommon Wisdom (1988), The Web of Life (1996), and The Hidden Connections (2002).

I found "The Turning Point" an amazing book, develops new way of thinking and attitude toward life...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) is a Lebanese American philosopher, essayist and practitioner of mathematical finance. He wrote the 2007 book The Black Swan, which a Sunday Times review described as one of the twelve most influential books since World War II.
He is a bestselling author, and has been a professor at several universities, currently at Polytechnic Institute of New York University and Oxford University. He has also been a hedge fund manager and Wall Street trader,[ and is currently a scientific adviser at Universa Investments. He criticized the risk management methods used by the finance industry and warned about financial crises, subsequently making a fortune out of the late-2000s financial crisis. He advocates what he calls a "black swan robust" society, meaning a society that can withstand difficult-to-predict events. He favors "stochastic tinkering" as a method of scientific discovery, by which he means experimentation and fact-collecting instead of top-down directed research.
Ref: Wikipedia

Alvin Toffler

Alvin Toffler (born October 4, 1928 in New York City is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communication revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity.
A former associate editor of Fortune magazine, his early work focused on technology and its impact (through effects like information overload). Then he moved to examining the reaction of and changes in society. His later focus has been on the increasing power of 21st century military hardware, weapons and technology proliferation, and capitalism.

Peter Drucker

Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was a writer, management consultant, and self-described “social ecologist.”His books and scholarly and popular articles explored how humans are organized across the business, government and the nonprofit sectors of society.He is one of the best-known and most widely influential thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory and practice. His writings have predicted many of the major developments of the late twentieth century, including privatization and decentralization; the rise of Japan to economic world power; the decisive importance of marketing; and the emergence of the information society with its necessity of lifelong learning.In 1959, Drucker coined the term “knowledge worker" and later in his life considered knowledge work productivity to be the next frontier of management.