Aleksandra Ekster | Avant Garde painter

Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster (1882-1949) cubo-futurist, suprematist, constructivist and designer is one of most famous Russian Avant Garde female painters that gained international recognition.

She was a multi talented artist - a painter, ceramist, graphic artist, clothes designer.

Alexandra Ekster would also become a co-founder of the Art Déco.

In Paris, Aleksandra Ekster was a personal friend of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who introduced her to Gertrude Stein.

Marc Chagall | Stained glass windows

One of Chagall's major contributions to art has been his work with stained glass. This medium allowed him further to express his desire to create intense and fresh colors and had the added benefit of natural light and refraction interacting and constantly changing: everything from the position where the viewer stood to the weather outside would alter the visual effect (though this is not the case with his Hadassah windows).

It was not until 1956, when he was nearly 70 years of age, that he designed windows for the church at Assy, his first major project. Then, from 1958-1960, he created windows for Metz Cathedral.

Marc Chagall | Paris through my window, 1913

After Marc Chagall moved to Paris from Russia in 1910, his paintings quickly came to reflect the latest avant-garde styles.

In "Paris Through the Window", Chagall’s debt to the Orphic Cubism of his colleague Robert Delaunay is clear in the semitransparent overlapping planes of vivid color in the sky above the city.

The Eiffel Tower, which appears in the cityscape, was also a frequent subject in Delaunay’s work. For both artists it served as a metaphor for Paris and perhaps modernity itself.

Chagall’s parachutist might also refer to contemporary experience, since the first successful jump occurred in 1912. Other motifs suggest the artist’s native Vitebsk.

Marc Chagall | Paris through my window, 1913 | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation

Vasiliy Polenov (1844-1927)

Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov /Васи́лий Дми́триевич Поле́нов was a Russian landscape painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement of realist artists.

His contemporaries would call him the "Knight of Beauty" as he embodied both European and Russian traditions of painting.

His vision of life was summarized as following: "Art should promote happiness and joy".

As a painter and a humanist, he would truly believe in the civilizing mission of Art, Culture and Education.

The Wanderers’ movement and the Abramtsevo Circle

During the 1880s, his work was spotted by Vladimir Stassov, a supporter of the traveling exhibition society (the Wanderers), which he joined then.

This artistic movement was born from the desire to break with the themes imposed by the Academy to better represent contemporary concerns. In addition, the members promote the accessibility of art among the people by organizing traveling exhibitions (not limited to the artistic centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg).

Yuri Krotov, 1964 | Landscapes

Yuri Krotov / Юрий Кротов was born in Grivenskaya Cossack Settlement, Krasnodar Territory, located close to the Azov Sea. At the age of 8 he met a local painter G.A. Polugaev who became his mentor.

With Polugaev, Krotov traveled to Moscow and enrolled in Moscow High School of Art under the Surikov Art Institute.

After high school he served in the Soviet Army for 2 years before attending the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov.

His style of impressionist painting blossomed on trips to France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Monaco and other European countries.

Serguei Zlenko, 1960 | I ballerini

Nato nella Repubblica di Georgia, Serguei Zlenko / Сергей Зленко si è laureato prima presso la scuola d'arte dell'Accademia d'arte russa, e successivamente ha ricevuto una laurea e un master in belle arti dall'Accademia d'arte Surikov di Mosca nel 1984.

Membro delle associazioni di artisti sia russe che finlandesi, ha è presente in gallerie e collezioni in Irlanda, Finlandia, Svezia, Francia, Stati Uniti e nella nativa Georgia.

Da molti anni Serguei ha un equilibrio vivendo in Irlanda con la Finlandia e viaggiando costantemente per il mondo eseguendo le sue commissioni di ritratti squisite e molto ricercate.

Wassily Kandinsky | VI - Il linguaggio delle forme e dei colori

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

L'uomo che non ha musica in se stesso

che l`armonia dei suoni non commuove

sa il tradimento, e la perfida frode.

Le sue emozioni sono una notte cupa

i suoi pensieri un Erebo nero.

Alla musica credi, non a lui.

Shakespeare

Il suono musicale giunge direttamente all'anima. E vi trova subito un'eco, perché l'uomo "ha la musica in sé".

"Si sa che il giallo, l'arancione e il rosso ispirano e rappresentano un'idea di gioia, di ricchezza" (Delacroix).

Alexander Sheversky | Figurative painter

Striking a harmonic balance between classical composition and modern disposition an original oil painting by Alexander Sheversky speaks to an appreciation for the vocation to contemporary realism. Each canvas is stately and monumental, extolling the virtues of discipline and emotion styled by the foremost of his teachers - Rembrandt and Vermeer.

The interplay of light and shadow and especially Sheversky’s inherent understanding of light bring a life to the painting that resonates and lives before the viewer.

Whether it is a figurative study or a still life its own existence is captured by the emotive values of light itself that the artist exhibits, thus embodying the living, omnipresent nature of the subject. And so a Sheversky painting espouses a marriage of the meticulous detail of classical technique to that which is clean, modern, and conceptually crisp.