Walker, Aida Overton (1880–1914)
Aida Overton Walker (born Ada Wilmore Overton) was one of the first female African-American stars of vaudeville, and perhaps the first to be recognized as…
Aida Overton Walker (born Ada Wilmore Overton) was one of the first female African-American stars of vaudeville, and perhaps the first to be recognized as…
Mabel (1880–1942), Essie (1882–1963), Alberta (1888–1964) and Alice (1900–1969) were the daughters of Albery Allson Whitman, a reverend in the African Methodist Episcopal church (and…
A prolific and influential Javanese artist, Haji Widayat is recognized for his “dekora-magis” (magical-decorative) contribution to Indonesian art. Throughout his five-decade artistic career he experimented…
‘Windrush’ is a term used to describe the post-World War II generation of writers from the English-speaking Caribbean who were published (and most often lived)…
Maximilian ‘Max’ Karl Emil Weber was born on April 21, 1864 in Erfurt, Prussia (present-day Germany), and is a prominent figure in the emergence of…
Werefkin was born into an aristocratic family and herself a baroness. Her mother, Elizabeth Daragan, was an artist; her father, an army general decorated by…
The world expositions were monumental, public spectacles originating in the industrial fairs of early-nineteenth-century France and culminating in the Expositions Universelles of Paris (1889 and…
Wang Wenxing is one of the most important fiction writers in the Chinese language in modern times. His experimentation with the Chinese language—pictography and syntax,…
American literary critic, editor, playwright, novelist and journalist Edmund Wilson’s key critical texts trace the development of twentieth-century Anglo-American writing. Wilson’s Axel’s Castle: A Study…
The critic, cultural historian and novelist Raymond Williams was an influential theorist of the emergence of literary and cultural modernism, and a key figure in…
The White Savages Group (Baek-man Heo) was founded in 1930 when Kim Yong-jun (1904–1967) published his manifesto “Upon Founding the White Savages Group” in a…
World Film News was a publication that advanced the visibility of the documentary film movement and hosted wide-ranging debates over film, politics, and aesthetics. The…
Ned Wayburn was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 30 March 1874, and raised in Chicago. He studied at the Hart Conway Chicago School of Elocution while…
Franz Viktor Werfel was a Jewish-born Austrian novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, and translator best known in the Anglophone world for his works of historical fiction,…
Lynd Kendall Ward was an American artist best known for the six novels in woodcuts he created between 1929–37, though he was also an accomplished…
The novel in woodcuts or the wordless novel is an artistic and narrative medium that emerged during the first half of the 20th century. The…
Beatrice and Sidney Webb were leading intellectual advocates of socialist reform in England. Beatrice Webb (née Potter) was born into a wealthy family, but her…
Born into slavery in Virginia, Booker Taliaferro Washington was the most prominent spokesman for Black Americans at the end of the 19th century. After attending…
Virginia Woolf was one of the foremost literary innovators of the early twentieth century. A novelist, essayist, short-story writer and literary critic, she was also…
Under Japan’s totalitarian state during World War II, most Japanese artists participated in the war effort. Their activities included producing works commissioned by the state,…
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher whose work, largely on the philosophy of language, had far-reaching implications for modernist intellectual history and for…
Sylvia Townsend Warner was the author of novels, short stories, poetry, journalistic non-fiction, and literary criticism. Her works often inhabit settings at opposite ends of…
An American potter known for luster-glaze chalices and whimsical ceramic figures, Beatrice Wood was once named the “Mama of Dada.” Born on 3 March 1893…
Wee Beng Chong is a Singaporean artist known for his work in both painting and sculpture. Trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore,…
Born in the neighborhood of Muharram Bey in Alexandria, Egypt, Adham Wanly is a leading figure of Egyptian modern painting. In 1929, together with his…