Born on March 18, 1866 in Saldus (Latvia), died on December 26, 1916 in Finland; reburied in Riga in 1920. One of the founders of the Latvian national school of painting.
He acquired his first professional skills working as a wall-painter and attending the School of German Craftsmen's Society in Riga. Studies at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1888 -1894, graduation work in 1896), participation in the activities of the Rukis Latvian artists union.
An outstanding portraitist. Painted also genre scenes, symbolic compositions, landscapes; author of altar pieces, works of monumental, decorative and graphic arts. His personal manner reflects stylistic changes that were characteristic of the period, i.e. liberation from academic traditions, influences of Impressionism, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, and Postimpressionism. Rozentals' essays and reviews of art that regularly appeared in periodicals, fostered the Latvian aesthetic thought and art theory. He taught at V. Blums' School and the Riga City Art School, as well as at his private art studio (1906 - 1910).
References: Art and Architecture. Biographies, II. Riga, 1996, pp. 232-233; R. Sterns. Janis Rozentals. Riga, 1925; U. Skulme and A. Lapins. Janis Rozentals. Riga,1954; Janis Rozentals.[Album] Riga, 1966; J. Silins. Latvian Art in 1800 - 1914, II. Stockholm, 1980; A. Stankevics. After the First Skylarks. Riga, 1981; Janis Rozentals / Compiled by I. Pujate. Riga, 1991; A Lifetime's Palette: Janis Rozentals' Correspondence / Compiled by I. Pujate and A. Putnina-Niedra. Riga, 1997.