Franz Xaver Winterhalter | Academic painter

Born in the Grand-Duchy of Baden in 1805, of peasant stock, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873) received early training in Freiburg as a graphic artist.

In 1824 he enrolled at the Munich Academy for further study in painting, while continuing to earn a living with lithographic work.

Moving to Karlsruhe in 1828, he found employment as drawing master to the margravine of Baden and thus entered the world of aristocratic patronage.

A travel stipend in 1833-1834 took him to Italy, where he composed romantic genre scenes in the manner of Léopold Robert (1794-1835).

Barbara McCann (1948-2011) | Impressionist painter

Barbara McCann, American painter, began her artistic endeavors with drawing as a child, and then with painting in her teenage years. Upon graduating from high school, she took a four-year apprenticeship in architectural illustration and design, which set the stage for a career in commercial art.

McCann moved to Florida in 1973, and for the next 20 years ran her own architectural illustration studio.

Julio Vila y Prades (1873-1930)

Julio Vila y Prades was a Spanish painter🎨 and muralist who also worked throughout Latin America.

Against his parents wishes, he began his artistic studies at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos with Francisco Domingo Marqués and Joaquín Agrasot🎨.

He then went to Madrid and was an assistant in the workshop of Joaquín Sorolla🎨 from 1893-1904.

Marius Borgeaud | Post-impressionist painter

Marius Borgeaud (1861-1924) was a Swiss Post-Impressionist painter. He was born in Lausanne.

Early life

Borgeaud came from a bourgeois milieu; he attended the Industrial School of Lausanne and did not intend to pursue painting.

As chance would have it, the future gallerist Paul Vallotton was one of his school-mates.

In 1888, he began working in a bank in Marseille and remained there until the death of his father the following year.

Cuno Amiet | Expressionist painter

Cuno Amiet (1868-1961) is often called the “master of colour” and is seen as a pioneer of modernism in Swiss art; he ranks as one of the most versatile and significant artists of Switzerland.

Cuno Amiet was born in Solothurn and devoted his entire life to art.

After finishing school he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and continued his training with his friend Giovanni Giacometti at the Académie Julian in Paris.

Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706)

Godfried Schalcken or Gottfried Schalken was a Dutch genre and portrait painter.

He was noted for his mastery in reproducing the effect of candlelight, and painted in the exquisite and highly polished manner of the Leiden fijnschilders.

Life and work

Godfried Schalcken was born in Made, North Brabant, the son of Cornelis Schalcken and Aletta Lydius.

Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885) | Romantic / Genre painter

Carl Spitzweg was a German🎨 romantic painter, especially of genre subjects🎨. He is considered to be one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier era.

Spitzweg was born in Unterpfaffenhofen, near Munich, Bavaria, the second of three sons of Franziska (née Schmutzer) and Simon Spitzweg.

His father, a wealthy merchant, had Carl trained as a pharmacist.

Arkady Plastov (1893-1972) Socialist Realist painter

Arkady Alexandrovich Plastov / Аркадий Александрович Пластов was a Russian🎨 socialist realist painter. Plastov was born into a family of icon painters in the village Prislonikha in the Russian Governorate of Simbirsk.

He attended the sculpture department of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture beginning in 1914.

César Pattein (1850-1931) | Genre painter

César Pattein was a French painter active from 1882-1914.

Pattein studied under French Naturalist painter Jules Breton (1827-1906) .

He was exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris, where he was awarded a third-class medal in 1896.

Born in Steenvoorde, in northern France, Pattein was raised among farmers and maintained a close connection to the rural region throughout his life.

Hermann Hesse: A dance by Chopin, 1901

Frédéric Chopin, 1906 - Parc Monceau, Paris, France - Jacques Froment-Meurice (1864-1947)

A dance by Chopin sounds loudly in the ballroom,

A wild, riotous dance.

The windows gleam pallidly because of the weather,

The grand piano is adorned by a wilted wreath.

Un walzer di Chopin riempie la sala

una danza selvaggia e scatenata.

Alla fine pallido chiarore,

il pianoforte adorna un'appassita ghirlanda.

Sir Thomas Francis Dicksee | Victorian painter

Sir Frank Bernard Dicksee PRA (1853-1928) was an English Victorian painter and illustrator, best known for his pictures of dramatic literary, historical, and legendary scenes.

He also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women, which helped to bring him success in his own time.

Bo Bartlett, 1955 | Realist / Figurative painter

Bo Bartlett is an American🎨 Realist painter with a modernist vision. His paintings are within the tradition of American Realism as defined by artists such as Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth.

Like these artists, Bartlett looks at America's land and people to describe the beauty he finds in everyday life. His paintings celebrate the underlying epic nature of the commonplace and the personal significance of the extraordinary.

"Bartlett was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where realist principles must be grasped before modernist ventures are encouraged.

John McGhie (1867-1952) | Seascape / Genre painter

John McGhie was born in Lesmahagow near Lanark in Scotland in 1867; the son of a grocer. He showed an early interest in drawing and painting, but was initially apprenticed to an architect before persuading his father to allow him to enrol at the Glasgow School of Art.

Following a year’s study in Glasgow he was awarded🎨 a scholarship to study for three years at the Royal Academy School in London where he was taught by Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896); amongst other renowned artists.

Octave Denis Victor Guillonnet (1872-1967)

Octave Denis Victor Guillonnet was a French painter🎨, great decorator of national palaces and designer, a portrait painter and illustrator.

Guillonnet was extraordinarily precocious as an artist, entering the studio of Lionel Royer at the age of thirteen and, incredibly, gaining his first medal at the Paris Salon🎨 two years later.

J.T. Winik | Figurative painter

Kingston based artist J. T. Winik obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Bachelor of Education at the University of Western Ontario in London.

Since 1996, J.T Winik has dedicated herself entirely to painting, dividing her time primarily between Spain, Holland and Canada. Winik's work frequently incorporates the female form.

Recurring themes examine the emotional tension within the psychological context of various dualities: power and fragility, angst and felicity, and passion and passivity.

Cesare Pavese / Filippo Anivitti: I will pass by Piazza di Spagna

Filippo Anivitti (1876-1955) | The Spanish Steps, Rome | Christie's

There will be a clear sky.

The streets will open out

onto the hills of pines and stone.

The tumult of the streets

will not disturb the still air.

Flowers blotched

with colour by the fountains

will eye you

like amused women. Steps

terraces swallows

will sing out in the sun.

Léon Spilliaert | Symbolist painter

Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946), also Leon Spilliaert, was a Belgian symbolist painter and graphic artist.

Spilliaert was born in Ostend, the oldest of seven children of Léonard-Hubert Spilliaert, a perfumer, and his wife Léonie (née Jonckheere).

From childhood, he displayed an interest in art and drawing. A prolific doodler and autodidact, he was predominantly a self-taught artist.

Charles-Amable Lenoir | Academic painter

French painter🎨 Charles Amable Lenoir (1860-1926) was born in Châtellaillon, a small district located near La Rochelle.

His family was of moderate means and knowing that his parents would not support art as a career, Lenoir became a maître d'études (study master), and then a teacher at a secondary school, the Lycée in Rochefort.

He began his artistic studies at Rochefort-su-Mer when he visited at age 20.

Hermann Hesse | Watercolor painter

• "For me, producing with drawing pen and brush is the wine whose inebriating effect makes life warm and pleasant to an extent that it becomes bearable".

• La produzione con penna e pennello per me è il vino, la cui ebbrezza scalda ed abbellisce la vita in modo da renderla sopportabile”.

Hermann Hesse, 1920.

Anna De Weert | Luminist painter

Anna De Weert, née Cogen; Anna Virginie Caroline De Weert (1867-1950) was a Belgian painter.

She would paint in the Luminist style.

Life

Weert was born in Ghent as Anna Virginie Caroline Cogen.

Her grandfather was Karel Lodewijk Ledeganck and her uncles, Alphons and Felix Cogen, were painters.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner | Expressionist painter

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) - German painter and printmaker- one of the leaders of a group of Expressionist artists known as Die Brücke (“The Bridge”).

His mature style was highly personal and notable for its psychological tension and eroticism.

In 1898 Kirchner was impressed by the graphic art of the German late Gothic artists, especially Albrecht Dürer, whose influence on Kirchner was lifelong.

Paul Kelley, 1955 | Figurative painter

Paul Kelley is a Canadian artist, born in Nova Scotia. He took his academic studies at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick form 1973-1975.

Paul lives in LaHave, Nova Scotia with his wife and family. He enjoys spending time with family and friends, running, kayaking, and working on their 100 year old house and property.

Frederick Daniel Hardy | Genre painter

Frederick Daniel Hardy (1826-1911) was an British genre painter and member of the Cranbrook Colony of artists.

Frederick Daniel Hardy was born at Windsor in Berkshire, the third of eight children of George Hardy (1795-1877) and his wife Sarah (1803-1872).

George Hardy was a horn player in the Private Band of Music of the Royal Households of George IV, Queen Adelaide and Queen Victoria.

Evgeniy Monahov, 1974 | Figurative painter

Russian painter Евгений Монахов was born in Moscow.

Graduated from the Moscow Art College and the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow (faculty of easel painting, studio under the guidance of professors M. Abakumov and V. Sidorov).

Since 2002 a member of the International Federation of Artists and National Artist's Union of Russia.

Weizhen Liang, 1955 | Impressionist painter

Chinese painter🎨 Weizhen Liang is a master member of American Impressionist Society and an artist member of the California Art Club.

Weizhen Liang, was born and raised in China. Her early interest in the arts focused on the written word and she received her BA degree in Chinese literature from Ji Nan University of Guang Zhou in China. Weizhen's aunt, An-Zhi Zhonng, was a well respected painter and professor at the Guang Zhou Academy of Fine Arts and she studied with her from an early age.

Leonid Tishkov, 1953 | Private Moon

Russian artist Leonid Tishkov was born into a school teacher's family in the Ural Mountains region of Russia and now lives and works in Moscow.

He has participated in numerous important group exhibitions including Berlin-Moscow 1950-2000, Berlin, Martin Gropius Bau 2002, Eye on Europe, 1960 to Now - MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, NY 2006, Fabric of the Myth, Compton Verney Gallery, UK 2007, Singapore Biennale 2008 and Moscow Biennale 2009.

Saint Cecilia: Patroness of Musicians

In the fourth century a Greek religious romance on the Loves of Cecilia and Valerian was written in glorification of virginal life with the purpose of taking the place of then-popular sensual romances.

Consequently, until better evidence is produced, we must conclude that St. Cecilia was not known or venerated in Rome until about the time when Pope Gelasius (496) introduced her name into his Sacramentary.

It is said that there was a church dedicated to St. Cecilia in Rome in the fifth century, in which Pope Symmachus held a council in 500.

The story of St. Cecilia is not without beauty or merit. She is said to have been quite close to God and prayed often:

"In the city of Rome there was a virgin named Cecilia, who came from an extremely rich family and was given in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She wore sackcloth next to her skin, fasted, and invoked the saints, angels, and virgins, beseeching them to guard her virginity".

Orazio Gentileschi🎨 | Saint Cecilia with an Angel

Lermontov, Rubinstein, Vrubel e l'amore del Demone per Tamara

"As soon as night has spread her veil

To cover the Caucasian heights;

As soon as nature neath the spell

Of magic words falls silent quite;

As soon as on the cliffs the wind

Runs rustling through the fading grass,

And the small bird that hides behind

The brittle blades flies up at last;

And, drinking in the evening dew

Beneath the vine-leaves in the gloom,

Night flowering blossoms come to bloom;

As soon as the great, golden moon

Above the mountain quietly peeps

To steal a stealthy glance at you;

I shall come flying to watch your sleep

And on your silken lashes lay

Enchanted dreams of golden day...."

Augustus Edwin Mulready | Genre painter

British painter Augustus Edwin Mulready (1844-1904) was an Genre painter specializing in street scenes of London's underbelly - street urchins were a favorite subject.

Augustus Edwin Mulready was born c 1844 in London the son of Thomas and Sarah Mulready and grandson of the painter William Mulready R.A. (1786-1863).

Attracted by the artist's Colony established in Cranbrook Augustus moved there to further his profession in the late 1860s and lived next door to F.D.

Danny McBride, 1951

Danny McBride was born in Toronto, and has spent all of his working years in the arts as a musician, composer, singer and artist.

First as a musician, composer and songwriter, Danny made world tours with the likes of David Hasselhoff, Chris de Burgh and Joe Cocker.

His illustrious music career has netted him several gold and platinum records and a profile that still keeps him newsworthy.

In 1996 he wrapped up a US and Taiwan concert tour and began to slow his pace.

Tina Palmer, 1964 | Abstract painter

Like many artists, Tina Palmer had a natural interest in painting from her early childhood, and watching her father paint and draw always got her attention.

She was the kid teachers called-on for creative undertakings like composing the bulletin boards for Holidays and her art teachers were a strong influence throughout high school.

Tina attended college studying graphic design in the era before computer aided design was mainstream and most designs were hand rendered.

Robert Pilot (1898-1967) | Impressionist painter

Robert Wakeham Pilot MBE RCA was a Canadian artist🎨, who worked mainly in oil on canvas or on panel, and as an etcher and muralist.

Pilot was born on 9 October 1898, at St. John's, Newfoundland, to Edward Frederick Pilot and his wife Barbara (née Merchant).

In 1910, his widowed mother married the artist, Maurice Cullen, moving into Cullen's home in Montreal.

As a child, Pilot assisted Cullen in his studio, and the two would take sketching trips together.

Michael Creese | Surrealist painter

American painter🎨 Michael Creese was born in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his family at the age of seven.

While in school, he developed a keen interest in art and drawing, and was greatly encouraged by his high school art teachers to pursue his passions.

Michael’s interest in drawing quickly progressed to a fascination with painting.

After being accepted at several different universities, including the Pratt Institute of New York, Michael began his formal art training at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, where in 1981 he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Pierre Auguste Cot | Academic painter

French painter🎨 Pierre Auguste Cot (17 February 1837 - 2 August 1883) was born in Bédarieux, and initially studied at l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse before going to Paris.

In 1863 he made a successful debut at the Salon, and from the 1870s, his popularity grew quickly.

Cot enjoyed the patronage of the academic sculptor Francisque Duret, whose daughter he married, and of William-Adolphe Bouguereau▪, with whom he had also worked.

Ophelia Redpath, 1965 | Surrealist painter

Redpath was born in Cambridge, England, where she still lives. Her career as a painter spans over 20 years with exhibitions in over 100 shows in Britain and overseas, painted several murals and produced two books.

From 1983-1984 she attended the Art Foundation Course at CCAT where she studied under the tutelage of the acclaimed illustrator, Warwick Hutton and the highly respected painter, Julia Ball.

After further studies of Music and Education at Homerton College, she took up painting full-time.

She lives in a village near Cambridge with her daughter Sally.

Felix Elie Tobeen | Cubist painter

Tobeen is the pseudonym of the French artist Félix Bonnet (1880-1938).

Tobeen stayed frequently in the western part of thé Pyrenees, Basque Country, but was born and bred in Bordeaux.

Because of his frequent reference to Basque subjects within his paintings he became known as a Basque artist. However, he was not a Basque and neither were his parents.

Paul Dubois (1829 -1905) | Figurative sculptor

Paul Dubois was a French sculptor🎨 and painter from Nogent-sur-Seine. His works were mainly sculptures and statues and he was also a portrait painter.

Paul Dubois was born on the 18 July 1829 in Nogent-sur-Seine, France.

He began studying law to please his father who practiced as a notary, but gave this up in order to train as a sculptor; his enthusiasm for this possibly fanned by the admiration he had for the work of his great-uncle Jean-Baptiste Pigalle.

When making his debut at the Paris Salon in 1857 he did so under the name Dubois-Pigalle.

Giovanni Paolo Pannini | Baroque painter

Giovanni Paolo Panini or Pannini (1691-1765) was a painter and architect who worked in Rome and is primarily known as one of the vedutisti ("view painters").

As a painter, Panini is best known for his vistas of Rome, in which he took a particular interest in the city's antiquities.

Among his most famous works are his view of the interior of the Pantheon (on behalf of Francesco Algarotti), and his vedute - paintings of picture galleries containing views of Rome.

Giuseppe Muscio, 1955 | Hyperrealist painter

Italian painter Giuseppe Muscio was born in Orta Nova, a small town situated in the historical and cultural region of Apulia.

"I was fascinated by the majestic landscape around me and realised that I was born to be an artist and painter.

If I close my eyes, I still can smell the perfume of the rows of vines, the fragrance of the olives and the almonds".

Юрий Обуховский, 1965 | Romantic Realism painter

Юрий Обуховский / Yuri Obukhovsky work in the genre of landscape in oil painting and watercolors, continuing and developing the traditions of Russian realistic school, or rather its direction "Romantic Realism".

Юрий Обуховский was born in Perm.

Albert Henry Krehbiel | Impressionist painter

Albert Henry Krehbiel (1873-1945) was the most decorated American painter ever at the French Academy, winning the Prix De Rome, four Gold Medals and five cash prizes.

He was born in Denmark (Iowa) and taught, lived and worked for many years in Chicago.

In 1879, he moved with his family to Newton, Kansas, where his father was a prominent Mennonite layman, prosperous carriage and buggy maker, and later a co-founder of Bethel College.

Johan Laurentz Jensen | Floral Still Life painter

Johan Laurentz Jensen (1800-1856), Danish painter🎨, was born in Gjentofte, near Copenhagen. He began his formal art training at the age of 14, studying under Fritzsch at the Copenhagen Academy, where he won medals in 1817-1818.

In 1822 Jensen moved to France to study porcelain manufacturing in Sevres, where Crown Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark had recommended him.

Luigi Chialiva | Naturalist painter

Luigi Chialiva (1841-1914) was born in Caslano in the Italian speaking Canton of Ticino, in Switzerland in 1842, the son of Abbondio Chialiva.

He studied in Berne and graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich whereupon he worked with Gottfried Semper, the architect who designed, amongst other buildings, the Dresden Opera and Zurich Railway Station.

Chialiva then moved to Milan to study at the School of Art, and with Carlo Mancini (1829-1910).

John Singer Sargent: "Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh!"

• "Color is an inborn gift, but appreciation of value is merely training of the eye, which everyone ought to be able to acquire".

• "I do not judge, I only chronicle".

• "Mine is the horny hand of toil".

• "No small dabs of colour - you want plenty of paint to paint with".

Francis Luis Mora | America's First Hispanic Master

Francis Luis Mora (1874-1940) was a Uruguayan-born American🎨 figurativ painter.

Mora worked in watercolor, oils and tempera. He produced drawings in pen and ink, and graphite; and etchings and monotypes.

He is known for his paintings and drawings depicting American life in the early 20th century; Spanish life and society; historical and allegorical subjects; with murals, easel painting and illustrations. He also was a popular art instructor.

Happy Birthday Artemisia Gentileschi !!

Artemisia Gentileschi, (born July 8, 1593, Rome, Papal States [Italy] - died 1652/53, Naples, Kingdom of Naples), Italian painter, daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, who was a major follower of the revolutionary Baroque painter, Caravaggio.

She was an important second-generation proponent of Caravaggio’s dramatic realism.

A pupil of her father and of his friend the landscape painter Agostino Tassi, she painted at first in a style indistinguishable from her father’s somewhat lyrical interpretation of Caravaggio’s example.

Stanisław Żukowski (1873-1944) | Impressionist painter

Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky (Polish: Stanisław Żukowski, Russian: Станислав Юлианович Жуковский) was a Polish🎨-Russian painter🎨, and a member of Mir Iskusstva.

Zhukovsky was born in Yendrikhovtsy (Jędrzychowice), Grodno Province.

He was a student of Isaac Levitan🎨 and a graduate of the Moscow School of Painting.

Eric Fortune | Pop Surrealist painter

Eric Fortune is an artist based out of Columbus, Ohio.

He received his BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design where he was honored with the Outstanding Senior Award🎨 upon graduation.

His work continued to garner acclaim with the acceptance into such prestigious annual competitions as The Society of Illustrators NY and LA as well as Spectrum and others.

He was the Artist Guest of Honor for ConGlomeration and was recently awarded🎨 the Jack Gaughan Award for Best Emerging Artist of 2009.

Józef Mehoffer (1869-1946) | Symbolist painter

Józef Mehoffer was a Polish painter🎨 and decorative artist, one of the leading artists of the Young Poland movement and one of the most revered Polish artists of his time.

Mehoffer was born in Ropczyce, studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, as well as in Paris at the Académie Colarossi among others.

Anselm Feuerbach (1829-1880) | Romantic painter

Anselm Feuerbach, (born September 12, 1829, Speyer, Bavaria [now in Germany] - died January 4, 1880, Venice, Italy), one of the leading German painters🎨 of the mid-19th century working in a Romantic style of Classicism.

Feuerbach was the son of a classical archaeologist and the nephew of the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach.

After studying art at the Düsseldorf Academy and in Munich, he went twice to Paris, where he worked in the studio of Thomas Couture🎨 and was influenced by Gustave Courbet🎨 and Eugène Delacroix🎨.