Cecil Kennedy | Flower painter

Cecil Kennedy (1905-1997) was a painter in oils who specialised in flowers becoming one of the popular British flower painters of his time.

Cecil Kennedy was celebrated as one of the finest horticultural and still-life artists of the 20th century.

He is best known for his extraordinarily detailed and luminous flower arrangements, which critics frequently compared to the works of the 17th-century Dutch and Flemish Old Masters.

After training at art school in London, Paris, Antwerp and Zürich, Kennedy studied under a number of artists, the most influential being Nieco Jungmann.

Paul Knight, 1965 | Realist painter

Paul Knight was born and lives in Nottinghamshire, England.

In 2007 he renewed his interest in art, and after a period of two years decided to pursue art education by enrolling in a Fine Art degree course at Nottingham University.

He continues to work on the degree course, and while taking a break from it, he has set up a small drawing workshop.

This has driven him in the direction of developing a traditional method of cast and still life work that incorporates modern concepts.

Paul is very interested in modern American artists who show a resurgence into Realism.

Patrick McDonald | Flamenco Dancers

Patrick McDonald, British painter, was born in Manchester.

His painting show big sensibility and beauty.

McDonald has created a world of ethereal beauty.

Softness of shapes with an explosion of colours makes his creations absolutely unique.

The paintings show the inner subtleties which find its way out in a daring, free and often majestic compositions.

Pat shows what freedom of space really is, be it the stage or a vast ocean.

Aldo Balding, 1960 | Figurative painter

Aldo Balding is a prominent contemporary British figurative artist and portrait painter known for his romantic, cinematic style.

Balding identifies primarily as a tonalist painter, building his compositions on light, shadow, and color harmony rather than rigid lines.

His work is deeply influenced by legendary masters like John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn and Joaquín Sorolla.

His paintings look like frozen stills from classic mid-century movies.

David Hockney, the iconic British painter has died aged 88

David Hockney (9 July 1937 - 11 June 2026) was a British painter, printmaker, stage designer and photographer.

As an important contributor to the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century.

He began this style of art by taking Polaroid photographs of one subject and arranging them into a grid layout.

The subject would actually move while being photographed so that the piece would show the movements of the subject seen from the photographer’s perspective.

Roger Desoutter | Maritime painter

Roger Charles Desoutter RSMA (1923-2020) was a prominent British marine and landscape painter recognized for his highly detailed, atmospheric depictions of sailing ships, coastal waters and rural scenes.

Balancing technical accuracy with a profound appreciation for natural light, he became a regular exhibitor and respected member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA).

Born and educated at Mill Hill Desoutter went on to obtain a degree in engineering at Loughborough; after which he was chosen, in 1942, to join the team of Sir Frank Whittle, engaged in the design and development of the first jet engines, which occupied him until 1945.

Most of his spare time during this period was making sketches in pen and ink, and pastels, as well as producing technical drawings for engineering publications.

Anne Magill, 1962 | Figurative painter

Anne Magill, Irish-born British painter is rapidly building a strong following amongst an exclusive international audience, with works held in major private and corporate collections worldwide.

After studying at St. Martin’s School of Art and gaining early success as an innovative and award-winning commercial artist, Magill’s iconic subjects and narrative style made an easy transition into fine art, with her first solo exhibition taking place in 1992.

Anne’s style has steadily developed, with exhibitions in prestigious galleries in London, Europe and the United States.

Rich and atmospheric texture, epic silhouettes, timeless context and infinitely subtle tonal notes, have become Magill’s distinctive creative signature.

Anne Magill’s portraits, landscapes and contextual urban and rural canvases evoke a powerful vision unparalleled by her contemporaries.

Alan Douar, 1963 | Quando ti chiedi cos'è l'amore... / When you ask what love is

Quando ti chiedi cos'è l'amore,

immagina due mani ardenti

che si incontrano,

due sguardi perduti l'uno nell'altro,

due cuori che tremano

di fronte all'immensità di un sentimento,

e poche parole

per rendere eterno un istante.

Dorina Costras

Carl Payne, 1969 | Figurative sculptor

British sculptor Carl Payne was born in Staffordshire.

During his education he studied Figurative Sculpture and began on his first commission in 2000.

Since then, Payne has compiled an extensive ensemble of commissions including 'Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross' and 'King George and Queen Mary' which were unveiled by George Best, Bobby Moore and Pele and by Princess Anne at Banbury respectively.

Today he has a wide variety of collectors throughout the world.

William Blake: "È più facile perdonare un nemico che un amico"!

• "Il Cristianesimo è Arte e non soldi. I Soldi sono la sua Maledizione".

• "Reprimono il desiderio solo quelli che lo hanno tanto debole da poterlo reprimere".

• "È più facile perdonare un nemico che un amico".

• "La via dell'eccesso conduce al palazzo della saggezza".

• "Nessun uccello vola troppo in alto, se vola con le proprie ali".

• "Chi manca di coraggio è esuberante d'astuzia".

• "Una verità detta con cattiva intenzione batte tutte le bugie che si possono inventare".

• "Nel tempo della semina impara, in quello del raccolto insegna, d'inverno godi".

Catlin Harrison | Abstract artist

"A Londoner by birth and inclination, the city provides for me a fresh daily helping of eclectic people to watch and wonder about.

I'm endlessly fascinated with the human form, especially meta-figures like ghosts or dolls or archetypes.

Sometimes I think my work stems from a collectors' sensibility - particularly those Victorian do-gooders who pinned butterflies or measured skulls.

Each piece of work is an independent specimen, a set of examples of a particular type.

Presence, oddity, beauty and humour are important elements in all my work, as is colour and aesthetics'.

Mimosa paintings

• "After women, flowers are the most lovely thing God has given the world".

• "Dopo le donne, i fiori sono la cosa più bella che Dio ha dato al mondo".

- Christian Dior

William-Adolphe Bouguereau | The Mimosa Flower, 1899

Geoffrey Wynne, 1949 | Watercolor painter

Born in Stoke, on Trent, Staffordshire, British award winning Geoffrey Wynne moved to Spain soon after completing his degree in Fine Art at North Staffordshire University of Fine Art - BA Hons in Fine Art, 1985.

Over the last 30 years this medium has taken him to many places, his aim being to try and capture the essence of what he sees and feels in each location.

In the studio watercolour painting has also taken him on another journey in the sense of an exploration of the medium and its infinite forms of expression.

Hughie O'Donoghue RA, 1953 | Abstract Expressionism painter

Hughie O’Donoghue RA was born in Manchester, England but much of his work is influenced by time spent in his mother’s place of origin, the remote Barony of Erris in Co Mayo, Ireland.

His paintings explore themes of universal human experience, often on an epic scale, they meditate on ideas of truth and the relationship between memory and identity, drawing on history and personal records to create works which resonate with emotional intensity.

O’Donoghue was elected as a Royal Academician in the category of Painting in 2009.

He completed an MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths in 1982 and was Artist in Residence at the National Gallery, London from 1984-85.

History of Poetry

Poetry is one of the oldest forms of human expression, predating literacy and evolving from oral traditions used to preserve history, genealogy and law.

The word "poet" originates from the Greek poiētēs, meaning "maker".

The Echo in the Cave

The first voice wasn't a voice at all, not really.

It was a rhythm.

In the dim coolness of a limestone cave, millennia ago, Elara, a woman of the Clan of the Whispering Winds, beat a steady pulse on a stretched animal skin.

Enheduanna's head - celebrated as the earliest known named Author in world history | Morgan Library / The Penn Museum

John Ruskin: "All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness"

• "All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness".

• "Tutte le opere grandi e bellissime nascono dall’aver prima guardato, senza indietreggiare, nell'oscurità".

• "We blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages".

Conflict and isolation in contemporary urban life | David FeBland, 1949

Self taught artist David FeBland was born in London, England and has received professional degrees from The University of Virginia and The University of Manchester, UK.

A fully self-taught artist, FeBland pursued careers in Landscape Architecture and Communication Design as well as hosting a jazz radio program and bicycling through 44 countries before turning his full-time attention to painting in the mid-1980’s.

When Christmas was prohibit

A 1931 edition of the Soviet magazine Bezbozhnik, published by the League of Militant Atheists, depicting an Orthodox Christian priest being forbidden to take home a tree for the celebration of Christmastide, which was banned under the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of state atheism.

While Christmas is celebrated globally, throughout history, various nations and regions have banned Christmas celebrations for religious, political, or ideological reasons.

These bans ranged from 17th-century religious reformations to 20th-century state-sponsored atheism.

Even today, in 2025, there are nations that maintain strict bans or significant restrictions on Christmas celebrations.

Helen Allingham RWS | Victorian era painter

Helen Allingham RWS (née Helen Mary Elizabeth Paterson; 26 September 1848 - 28 September 1926) was an British* watercolour painter and illustrator of the Victorian era.

Biography

Helen Mary Elizabeth Paterson was born at Swadlincote in Derbyshire, the daughter of Alexander Henry Paterson, a medical doctor, and Mary Herford Paterson.

Helen Paterson was the eldest of seven children. The family moved to Altrincham in Cheshire when she was one year old.

In 1862 her father and her 3-year-old sister Isabel died of diphtheria during an epidemic.

The family then moved to Birmingham, where some of Alexander Paterson's family lived.

Arthur John Elsley | Genre painter

Arthur John Elsley (20 November 1860 - 19 February 1952) was an English painter of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, famous for his idyllic genre scenes of playful children and their pets.

He achieved great popularity during his life and much of his work appeared in calendars, magazines and books.

Elsley was born in London, one of six children of John Elsley, coachman and amateur artist, and Emily Freer.

Elsley's father had exhibited at the British Institution Exhibition in 1845 but later in life contracted tuberculosis which forced him into early retirement.