Antonio Sicurezza (1905-1979) | Figurative painter

Antonio Sicurezza was an Italian painter🎨 representative for the contemporary figurative art of the Lazio region, Italy.

He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, winning a scholarship as a worthy competitor among the four faculties. He obtained the diploma in painting under the guidance of the masters Carlo Siviero, Vincenzo Volpe, Vincenzo Migliaro and Paolo Vetri.

The first contact with the territory of Formia was in 1933–1934, when he was called to paint the chapel of St. Anthony in the church of Maranola. Here he met Virginia Mastrogiovanni whom he married in 1934.

Istvan Sàndorfi (1948-2007) | Hyper-Surrealist painter

István Sándorfi🎨 [1948-2007] also known as Étienne Sandorfi, was a naturalised French painter of Hungarian origin.

He received his formal art education at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and at École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris.

He mastered what art critics now term hyperrealism. But he did so with his very own blend of Surreal🎨 elements. Having been introduced to oil painting at the age of 12, Sandorfi🎨 dedicated much of his life to perfecting his painting techniques in order to achieve the photoreal and at the same time pull the carpet away under the viewer by letting part of a person dissappear in thin air.

Maxime Maufra (1861-1918) Impressionist painter

Maxime Maufra was a French🎨 landscape and marine painter, etcher and lithographer.

Maufra first began painting at 18.

He was encouraged to do so by two artists from Nantes such as the brothers Charles Leduc and Alfred Leduc and the landscape painter Charles Le Roux.

Achille Funi (1890-1972) | Futurist painter

Achille Funi was an Italian painter🎨 who painted in a neoclassical style.

Funi was born in Ferrara. He studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts from 1906-1910 and joined the Nuove Tendenze movement as a painter of Cubo-Futurist works in 1914.

Having enlisted in the Volunteer Cyclist Battalion and served in World War I, he became a champion of the "return to order".

Cesare Ciani (1854-1925) | Post-Macchiaioli painter

Cesare Ciani was an Italian painter🎨 associated with the Post-Macchiaioli group.

A student of Giuseppe Ciaranfi at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence in 1878, where he won a prize for painting, Cesare Ciani was also strongly influenced by the work of the Macchiaioli painter Giovanni Fattori🎨, with whom he also studied.

Fattori’s guidance is readily evident in Ciani’s landscapes, city scenes and portraits, confidently painted with broad, sketchy brushstrokes.

Olga Akasi, 1970 | Classical portraits painter

Olga Akasi / Ольга Акаси is an Ukrainian artist born in Kiev, Ukraine.

She studied painting at the Grekov Odessa Art school.

"Akasi’s characters have astonishing faces. They don’t look like faces of real people; they came from another world, very far from human being. They look like images that don’t exist in our world.

Artist materializes them, embodies them, makes viewer to peer at this different-being and not to recognize himself in it. Smiles of faces at her works are not mundane and not human; there is something different in human being, the mystery that unites mundane human world with non-material, spiritual image".

Joan Miró (1893-1983) | Surrealist painter / sculptor | Page 2

Joan Miró🎨 - Catalan painter who combined abstract art with Surrealist fantasy.

His mature style evolved from the tension between his fanciful, poetic impulse and his vision of the harshness of modern life.

He worked extensively in lithography and produced numerous murals, tapestries, and sculptures for public spaces.

Henri Matisse | Art Quotes

• "What I am after, above all, is expression".
• "Ciò che sto cercando, soprattutto, è l'espressione".
• "I have worked to enrich my intelligence and meet my mind’s various needs, striving with all of my being for an understanding of the different interpretations of art given by the ancient and modern masters".
• "Ho lavorato per arricchire la mia intelligenza, per soddisfare le differenti esigenze del mio spirito, sforzando tutto il mio essere alla comprensione delle diverse interpretazioni dell'arte plastica date dagli antichi maestri e dai moderni".

Michal Lukasiewicz, 1974 | Pop portrait painter

Michal Lukasiewicz was born in Pulawy, Poland and since 1995 lives and work in Antwerp, Belgium.

"My paintings are of the human form, the soft tenderness that it can transfer to the viewer; never the anger of the world but the peace and harmony that humans are capable of.

I have been influenced by living in Belgium and painters of the Benelux countries and I try to show the placid side of the subject using light, the reflection of light and the shadows to emphasise the subjects form and curves".

Edwin Austin Abbey | Pre-Raphaelite painter / Illustrator

Edwin Austin Abbey, American painter🎨 and one of the foremost illustrators of his day.

While working as an illustrator for the publishing house of Harper and Brothers, New York City, Abbey began to create illustrations for the poems of Robert Herrick in 1874.

He went on to create illustrations for some of the works of Oliver Goldsmith and William Shakespeare🎨.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Portraits / Figures | Page 2

• "Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of a work of art? First, it must be indescribable, and, second, it must be inimitable".
• "Vuoi sapere quali sono le due qualità di un'opera d'arte? In primo luogo, deve essere indescrivibile e, in secondo luogo, deve essere inimitabile".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir🎨

Giorgio Dante, 1982 | Figurative painter

Giorgio Dante is an Italian🎨 figurative painter living and working in Rome, Italy.

After graduating in 2006 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, Dante distinguished himself as an artist of contemporary revival of classical painting.

His work emphasizes traditional methods and techniques of old masters. Italian art inspired him to paint since his childhood and influenced his choice to pursue an academic figurative style, focused on 19th century European painting (William Bouguereau🎨, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Lord Leighton, John William Waterhouse🎨, Paul Delaroche🎨, Jan Jaques Henner, ecc).

He exhibited in Europe and Usa.

Camille Claudel | L'âge mûr / L'Età matura, 1902

The Age of Maturity/L'âge mûr is probably the work that most lends itself to an interpretation based on autobiographical narrative: the end of the relationship between Claudel🎨 and Rodin🎨.

In actual fact, the association of the three figures with Camille Claudel🎨, Auguste Rodin🎨 and Rose Beuret arose some time after the sculpture was first exhibited. The critics initially saw it as the “symbolic representation of Destiny, in which the ageing man is torn away from love, youth and life”.

Auguste Rodin | Victor Hugo et les Muses, 1890

After Victor Hugo’s death in 1885, it was decided to erect a monument in his honour in the Panthéon as a pendant to Injalbert’s statue of Mirabeau. Auguste Rodin🎨 was awarded🎨 the commission in 1889. The sculptor chose to depict Victor Hugo in exile, seated amongst the rocks of Guernsey, his arm outstretched as if to calm the waves. It was an image both of the poet lost in contemplation and of the champion of the Republican cause.

This first project, “which lacked clarity and whose silhouette was muddled”,was unanimously rejected. In 1891, the Ministry of Fine Arts found another site for it. It would eventually be erected in the gardens of Palais-Royal.

Mark Arian, 1947 | Romantic Figurative painter

"To me, art is an expression of the rapture of being… hopefully unveiling a fragment of the radiance within all form. I believe that art can awaken the soul to the timeless presence of beauty and truth" - Mark Missman🎨.

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Mark Missman - Arian🎨 spent many hours throughout his youth in museums studying the painting techniques of the masters.

Diego Rivera (1886-1957) | Social Realist painter / muralist

Considered the greatest Mexican painter of the twentieth century, Diego Rivera had a profound effect on the international art world. Among his many contributions, Rivera is credited with the reintroduction of fresco painting into modern art and architecture.

His radical political views and tempestuous romance with the painter Frida Kahlo🎨 were then, and remain today, a source of public intrigue.

Federico del Campo (1837-1923) | Vedute painter

Federico del Campo was a Peruvian painter who was active in Venice where he was one of the leading vedute painters of the 19th century.

Del Campo was born in Lima and left his native Peru at a young age.

Nothing is known with certainty about his early studies in Peru.

He studied at Madrid's Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando) in Madrid from around 1865. Here he established a friendship with Lorenzo Valles, a history painter.

Anny Maddock, 1954 | Figurative painter

South African painter Anny Maddock started drawing people when she was old enough to hold a pencil and was considered a child prodigy. She matriculated at Rhenish Girls High in Stellenbosch and then studied fine art at Cape Technical College. After qualifying she studied Fashion Design and then went into Textile Design.

After her marriage and divorce she worked in fields as diverse as journalism, tourism, antiques and restauranteering.

Walter Langley (1852-1922) | Genre painter

Walter Langley was an British painter🎨 and founder of the Newlyn School of plein air artists.

He was born in Birmingham and his father was a journeyman tailor.

At 15 he was apprenticed to a lithographer.

At 21 he won a scholarship to South Kensington and he studied designing there for two years. The sometimes highly ornate work is mainly in gold and silver and in a Renaissance style🎨.

Pietro Canonica (1869 -1959) | Figurative sculptor

“The aim of the artist is to study truth in its purest form, concentrating the greatest possible emotion on it”, with these words Pietro Canonica🎨 declared his predilection for an art capable of idealising and yet at the same time expressing the most secret motions of the soul.

In his sculptures he combines the proportions and balance of classical art, the refined models of fifteenth century Florentine work, the lightness of touch of neoclassicism, Romantic disquietude and nineteenth century sensibility. Gifted with an absolute mastery of technique and great ability and speed in working the material, he received commissions from the aristocracy of all Europe, who sought after his refined taste and idealization.

Although these were the years of the historical avant garde, Canonica🎨 continued to create “classical” art, remaining faithful to his image of himself and his own instinct to trust in “beauty”.