František Drtikol | Art Déco / Nouveau photographer

František Drtikol (1883-1961) was a Czech photographer and became famous for his modernist portraits and acts in the style of the late Art Nouveau.

Born in 1883 in the mining town of Pribram, west of Prague, Drtikol would go on to study photography in Munich, where he would be heavily influenced by the Art Nouveau.

Early on he divided his time among both drawing and photography, but focused primarily on the latter upon his return home; both as an art form and as a means for making a living.

Mark Ashkenazi | Pop Art painter

Mark Ashkenazi is an Israeli photo artist based in New York City.

He loved art since childhood and everyone around him, including himself, knew that he would become an artist.

Starting artwork at such a young age provided him with the opportunity to learn a lot from other renowned artists.

Oleg Oprisco, 1987 | Surrealist / Conceptual photographer

Ukrainian Fine Art photographer Oleg Oprisco is born in the small town of Lviv, in western Ukraine.

Oprisco is known for his conceptual shots that involve elaborately constructed props and scenes that capture his distinct sense of surreality.

Relying on neutrals and subdued tones rather than a bold color palette, the mysterious, dreamlike images tend to center on a single figure within a quiet and unoccupied landscape.

Georges Maroniez | Genre painter

Georges Philibert Charles Maroniez (1865, Douai - 1933, Paris) was a French painter, specializing in landscapes with figures.

Education and first works

Maroniez was the son of an industrialist who owned a sugar refinery in Montigny-en-Ostrevent.

He displayed artistic talent at an early age, but - although not discouraged - was expected to pursue a more professional career.

Accordingly, he studied law, and afterwards served as a magistrate in, successively, Boulogne-sur-Mer (1891), Avesnes-sur-Helpe (1894) and Cambrai (1897).

Jeremiah Stermer's realistic surrealism

Jeremiah Stermer was born in Baltimore in 1946.

He started his artistic path at the age of 11.

He considers himself a realist / surrealist, meaning that the theme is always surrealistic, but the painting is made in a traditional way.

He states that he draws and paints very naturally, and that he pays the particular attention on the air around the subjects of his paintings and considers the mood as the crucial element of his works.

Ionut Caras, 1978 | Surrealist photographer

Romanian professional photographer and "photo mechanic" Ionut Caras was born and lives in Iasi, Romania.

Caras describes himself as a 'photo mechanic' and has created the series of mindboggling pictures using the computer program.

His passion for photography began seven years ago when Kara discovered the processing of photographs, artistic of composition.

Coco Chanel: "Fashion changes, but style endures"!

Coco Chanel and Romy Schneider

• "Where should one use perfume? A young woman asked. Wherever one wants to be kissed".

• "It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong".

And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person".

I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love".

The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness".

Claude Debussy / Paul Verlaine | Clair de Lune, 1869

Clair de Lune is a French poem written by Paul Verlaine (French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement, 1844-1896) in 1869.

It is the inspiration for the third and most famous movement of Debussy's 1890 Suite bergamasque of the same name.

The poem has also been set to music by Gabriel Fauré.

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer | Sérénade au clair de lune, Venise | Christie's