Salvador Dalí | Self-portraits

Salvador Dalí started to paint self-portraits very early on.

In the ones made during adolescence, Dalí represents himself with a distant attitude towards his companions, but at the same time wishing to make an impact on them (or to provoke them) and on the public in general.

Like other adolescents, he sought through his appearance an affirmation of his own personality, wearing long hair and sideburns, and dressing extravagantly.

Salvador Dali, 1941 | Soft self-portrait with grilled Bacon

Alfonso Gatto | Il bacio che cerco è l'anima / The kiss I seek is the soul

Le grandi notti d'estate

che nulla muove oltre il chiaro

filtro dei baci, il tuo volto

un sogno nelle mie mani.

Maria Amaral

Tristan Elwell | Fantasy Illustrator

Tristan Elwell is an award-winning American painter, illustrator and educator based in New York.

Best known for his highly detailed oil paintings that blend meticulous traditional techniques with pop-surrealism, fantasy and dark wit, he has created book covers and promotional art for nearly every major commercial publisher.

Tristan Elwell was born and raised in New York City, where he graduated from the High School of Music and Art, now LaGuardia High School.

He attended the School of Visual Arts on a full scholarship, graduating in 1990 at the top of his class.

While at SVA he also worked as a painting assistant to noted photorealist Charles Bell.

Renso Castaneda, 1970 | Figurative painter

Renso Castaneda (born Renso Zevallos Castaneda) is a prominent Peruvian contemporary figurative painter known for his highly detailed oil paintings that blend precise realism with surrealism.

Born in Lima, Peru, his artwork focuses heavily on portraiture and the exploration of the human form, often infusing his subjects with dreamlike, emotional and poetic elements.

Beyond his career as a gallery artist, Castaneda is highly active in international art education, teaching fine art techniques to global audiences online.

Graduated from the National Autonomous Superior School of Fine Arts of Peru, where he studied painting from 1989 to 1995.

Eva Antonini, 1961 | Figurative sculptor

Eva Antonini was born in Rapperswil-Switzerland, the place of her childhood and adolescence.

As a young girl, Eva reveals a natural proneness for molding clay, matter that later will be privileged in the creation of sculptures of medium and large dimensions.

From 1981-1985 she lives in Geneva, where she takes her first steps in the working world, following her diverse and complex education: language studies; singing, music and dance; a horizon of journeys, stays in England, Italy and United States with stops in the Middle and Far East.

Nadežda Petrović | Expressionist / Fauve painter

Nadežda Petrović / Надежда Петровић (1873-1915) was a Serbian painter and one of the women war photography pioneers in the region.

Considered Serbia's most famous Expressionist and Fauvist, she was the most important Serbian female painter of the period.

Born in the town of Čačak, Petrović moved to Belgrade in her youth and attended the women's school of higher education there.

In 1893, she became an art teacher at the school and later taught at the women's university in Belgrade.

Kay Ruane, 1956 | Symbolist painter

Kay Ruane is a contemporary American visual artist widely recognized for her intricate, highly detailed graphite drawings.

Currently based in Los Angeles, her meticulously rendered graphite-on-board and graphite-on-paper worlds often explore themes of human existence, isolation, intimacy and the cultural disconnect between interior spaces and the outside world.

Education: Earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and advanced her artistic training at Indiana State University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Haixia Liu, 1962 | Impressionist painter

Haixia Liu is a highly successful Chinese-American contemporary painter born to a family of artists in the Hubei Province of China.

He is celebrated for his vibrant, textured oil paintings that merge realistic details with dreamy contemporary impressionism.

Encouraged and instructed by his father and grandfather, he began to draw at very early age.

He did decorative painting for local businesses at age 12.

Between 1981-1983 Liu chose to learn graphic design at the Hubei Industry Institute.

Deidre But-Husaim, 1959

Deidre But-Husaim is an accomplished Australian contemporary realist painter based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Oil painting sits at the absolute core of her figurative and portraiture practice, which explores the deep tension between public identity and the private self.

Deidre But-Husaim attended Adelaide Central School of Art and Adelaide Centre for the Arts.

She paints with oil on canvas (linen), her work is mostly figurative.

Ignacio Larra, 1954 | Symbolist painter

Ignacio Larra is a renowned Spanish figurative and mural painter born in Caracas, Venezuela.

At age 14, he relocated to Spain with his parents, where his father -the celebrated landscape artist Juan Larramendi- became his primary artistic mentor.

Larra's distinct style, known for its deep symbolism, intimacy and meticulous attention to fine detail, was heavily shaped by his time spent in Amsterdam studying classical Flemish and Dutch painting.

His father recognized his early talent for painting figures and portraits, guiding his transition into fine oil painting.

Ben Goossens, 1945 | Il "Magritte della fotografia"

Ben Goossens was born in Liezele, Belgium and attended the St Lucas Art School in Brussels where he studied Illustration and Photography.

After four years in Art School, illustration and photography became his obsession.

He worked in advertising for 32 years, mostly as an Art Director, where he gained 15 years of Photoshop experience.

His source of inspiration in advertising came from surrealist paintings and still does in his work now.

His hobby and passion now is creating ‘experimental / surreal photomontages’, these images are very seamless yet painterly dreamscapes.

Denis Oktyabr, 1977 | Neo-Romantic painter

Son of a popular Siberian artist Valery Oktyabr / Валерий Октябрь, Денис Октябрь was born in a Russian city Novoaltaisk to continue the family artistic tradition.

In 1992 Denis finished Artists School and in 1997 graduated Artistic College of Novoaltaisk.

Oktyabr paints portraits, landscapes, genre pictures.

In his paintings Oktyabr tries to abstract his mind and brush from shapes and stereotypes to reflect feelings, emotions and to illustrate the sacred process of perception and meditation.

Shapes and colors of his paintings are perfect instruments to explore and embody ideas and sensations.

Ivan Aivazovsky | Romantic painter

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky / Ива́н Константи́нович Айвазо́вский (1817-1900) became the most prolific Russian painter of his time.

Early in his career, he was elected a member of five Academies of Fine Arts, including those of St. Petersburg (his Alma Mater) Rome, Florence, Stuttgart and Amsterdam.

He was an Academician at 27 and Professor of Marine Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, at the age of 30.

Teodor Axentowicz | Academic painter

Teodor Axentowicz (1859-1938) was a Polish-Armenian painter and university professor.

A renowned artist of his times, he was also the rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.

As an artist, Axentowicz was famous for his portraits and subtle scenes of Hutsul life, set in the Carpathians.

In Paris, he received the prestigious title of Officier d'Académie Ordre des Palmes Académiques and Member of Académie des Beaux-Arts.

In 1904 at the St. Louis World's Fair, Axentowicz received a Special Commemorative Award in recognition of distinguished service in connection with various national sections of the Department of Art.

Adebanji Alade ROI, 1972 | Cityscape painter

Adebanji Alade ROI, otherwise known as The Addictive Sketcher’, features regularly on the BBC’s The One Show, and can often be found sketching travellers on the London Underground.

He trained at Yaba College of Technology in Nigeria, later obtaining a diploma in portraiture from Heatherley’s School of Fine Art in Chelsea, where he now teaches.

He is also the founder of The Addictive Sketchers Movement (his online art school) where he inspires and teaches students all over the world how to sketch anything they see accurately and confidently.

Iman Maleki, 1976 | Realist painter

Iman Maleki, Iranian painter, was bornin Tehran.

He has been fascinated by the art of painting since he was a child.

At the age of 15, he started to learn painting under the mastery of his first and only teacher - Morteza Katouzian, who is the greatest realist painter of Iran.

Meanwhile, he began to paint professionally.

In 1999 he graduated in Graphic Design from the Art University of Tehran.

Since 1998, he has participated in several exhibitions.

Eric Casey Baugh, 1984 | Impressionistic Realism painter

Eric Casey Baugh is an acclaimed American contemporary artist known for his cinematic figurative oil paintings and atmospheric charcoal drawings.

His work bridges the gap between traditional realism and hyper-modern, narrative-driven impressionism.

His signature style blends strict anatomical accuracy with dreamlike, blurred, and atmospheric backdrops.

Born in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, Eric Casey Baugh’s earliest art instruction came around the age of four from his father and aunt who were artists by hobby.

Michael O'Toole | Impressionist painter

Michael O'Toole (1963-2018) was a renowned Canadian painter from British Columbia.

He attended BCIT where he studied architectural design and later moved to Toronto to work for several architectural firms.

Eventually he was drawn back to the beautiful West Coast where he now resides.

Michael's love for design led him to explore his creativity in variety of media including watercolour, pen and ink, graphite, gouache and acrylic.

Lennette Newell, 1959 | Naturalist photographer

Lennette Newell is an acclaimed American fine art and commercial photographer based in San Francisco, California.

She is world-renowned for her bold wildlife portraits and conceptual body-painting series that explore the blurring lines and evolutionary kinship between humans and the animal kingdom.

Lennette Newell channels a lifelong passion for Earth’s biodiversity and the magical wonder of the natural world into compelling animal portraits that afford viewers an intimate glimpse of creatures large and small.

Richard Ramsey, 1954 | Portrait photographer

Richard Ramsey is a highly celebrated, award-winning portrait photographer based in Memphis, Tennessee, who is best known for his mastery of digital portrait painting.

Spanning a career of over four decades, he blends traditional portrait photography with classical painterly aesthetics.

He has been honored eleven times with the prestigious title of "Photographer of the Year".