Camille Claudel, l'ossessione di Rodin: "Mia feroce amica.."

"Mia feroce amica"...

Inizia così il grido d'amore disperato di Rodin a Camille Claudel nei primi anni della loro relazione.

Rodin fu presto affascinato da questa allieva che divenne sua assistente, amante e musa, mentre Camille Claudel, esteriormente è rimasta in completo controllo dei suoi sentimenti.

Consumato e tormentato da un amore ossessivo, lui la implora - "in ginocchio" - per facilitare la sua sofferenza dall'inizio alla fine di questa lettera, scritta in uno stile confuso, con la sintassi errata ed ortografia imperfetta.

Montserrat Gudiol | La prima donna-membro della Reale Accademia Catalana di Belle Arti

Montserrat Gudiol i Corominas (1933-2015) è stata una pittrice Spagnola di origine catalana, celebre per essere stata una figura pionieristica nell'arte contemporanea della sua regione.

Alcuni dei suoi lavori sembrano ricordare Hieronymus Bosch con un occhiolino allo studio di suo padre, e altri sembrano riflettere le opere di famosi pittori del suo tempo come Picasso.

Figlia dell'architetto e storico dell'arte Josep Gudiol i Ricart, Montserrat si forma inizialmente come autodidatta all'interno dello studio di famiglia specializzato nel restauro di dipinti medievali.

Liseth Visser, 1960 | Classical Realist painter

Dutch artist Liseth Visser a.k.a. ElisabethV paints her pictures in a classic realistic way using oils.

She paints on panels and works both on a commission and non-commission basis.

She uses a traditional labour-intensive technique with under-layers, under-paintings and lots of (half) transparent to create softness, depth and glow within the final layers, this to achieve a natural and realistic skin tone in a poetic ambiance.

Wisława Szymborska | Allegro ma non troppo, 1972

Sei bella - dico alla vita,

è impensabile più rigoglio

più rane e più usignoli,

più formiche e più germogli.

Cerco di accattivarmela,

di blandirla, vezzeggiarla.

La saluto sempre per prima

con umile espressione.

Love Letter from Rodin to Camille Claudel, 1886: "My ferocious friend.."

"My ferocious friend".... "

Thus begins Rodin’s desperate cry of love to Camille Claudel in the early years of their relationship.

Rodin was soon captivated by this pupil who became his assistant, mistress and muse, while Claudel outwardly remained in complete control of her feelings.

Consumed and tormented by an obsessive love, he implores her - “on his knees” - to ease his suffering from beginning to end of this letter, written in a muddled style, with erroneous syntax and imperfect spelling.

Pia Erlandsson, 1961 | Abstract Watercolor painter

Pia Erlandsson is a professional Swedish painter best known for her expressive, ethereal human portraits primarily created using watercolors.

Born in southern Halland, she has been living and working out of Gothenburg, Sweden since 1986.

After completing her artistic training - notably studying under Kerstin Sandbaum between 1995 and 1999 - she committed to painting full-time in 2007.

Her work heavily explores human emotions and states of mind.

Maria Serafina, 1955 | Impressionist / Romantic painter

Maria Serafina Tribunella is an American of Sicilian origin (born in Collesano, Palermo); raised and educated in New York City.

After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New York University, she married and moved to the home of her ancestors, Italy.

It is there shat she now resides making her living as an accomplished painter alongside her husband, the Neapolitian artist, Raimondi Roberti.

The return to her native land has proved to be very important in the development of her artistic work.

There is a very strong influence of The Grand Tour heritage of Southern Italy that is nostalgically rendered in her paintings.

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.

Agnès Boulloche | Fantastic Surrealism painter

Agnès Boulloche (1951-2019) was a prominent French Surrealist painter and sculptor renowned for creating fantastical, dreamlike universes.

Heavily inspired by her childhood in Morocco and the works of Old Masters like Hieronymus Bosch, her art blends human and animal forms into surreal, allegorical creatures.

Born in Paris, she was the daughter of André Boulloche, a prominent French resistance fighter and Minister of Education.

She spent her early childhood in Morocco.

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.

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.

Nino Chakvetadze, 1971 | Children's book illustrator

Nino Chakvetadze, born in Tbilisi, Georgia, has built a distinct global following by capturing the innocence, vulnerability and quiet moments of childhood.

She received art degrees from Nikoladze Art Institute (1986-1990) and Tbilisi State Academy of Art on the faculty of painting (1990-1996).

Become a member of Georgian Painters’ Union in 1997.

Nino Chakvetadze is very popular among the artists and people due to her touching paintings of children.

In the paintings of Nino, children are the main characters drawn in her every story.

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.

Duma Arantes, 1973 | Pop / Fashion painter

Duma Arantes is a prominent Portuguese contemporary painter born in Lisbon, best known for her signature pop-art and fashion-influenced portraits of the female form.

She frequently lives and works out of Oeiras, Portugal.

Duma lives and works in Oeiras, Portugal where she studied advertising in IADE -Visual Arts, Design Marketig Institute and also Painting and Drawing at the National Society of Fine Arts, in Lisbon.

Sabrina Garrasi | Abstract painter

Italian illustrator Sabrina Garrasi based in Pesaro, Italy, known for her abstract paintings and whimsical fashion illustrations.

Her work balances material texture and ethereal concepts, focusing on themes like memory, space, time and femininity.

She divides her professional time working between Italy and Switzerland.

She frequently combines acrylics, watercolor, gouache, pure pigments, and pencil on premium cotton and fine art paper.

Margarita Georgiadis, 1968 | Narrative painter

Margarita Georgiadis is an internationally renowned Australian postwar and contemporary narrative painter.

Born in Sydney to Greek and Egyptian parents, her career spans over two decades.

Her atmospheric oil paintings often explore themes of memory, the illusion of reality, and the "presence of absence."

She educated herself in philosophy and physics.

This research underpins her work, to such an extent that she fondly compares painting to writing.

Georgiadis had an epiphany after the passing of her father.

Anne-Christine Roda, 1974 | Portrait painter

Anne-Christine Roda defines a highly original interpretation of the portrait: in her work the painting is entirely subjugated to the portrayal of man’s fragility.

Her paintings, in terms of the choice of pose for her models and the neutral treatment of their backgrounds are as rooted in tradition, as her subjects are sourced unequivocally from our contemporary era.

Her choice of subject speaks directly to our everyday lives.

Hers ‘sitters’ - very diverse in age and social status are striking in their individuality.

Sandra Bierman, 1938 | Figurative painter

The magic of American painter Sandra Bierman lies in her soulful, larger-than-life figurative oil paintings that evoke an immediate sense of tranquility, strength, and emotional warmth.

Working entirely from her imagination without models or photographs, she channels what critics and collectors often describe as "pure magic" directly onto the canvas.

Her signature subjects are stylized, exaggerated women with bare, earthy feet and disproportionately large, caring hands.

These figures are deeply nurturing, often seen cradling babies, tending to plants, or holding companion cats.

Bierman approaches her canvases like an abstract painter, focusing on space, shapes, and fluid lines.

Joanna Szewczyk, 1973 | Surrealist painter

Joanna Szewczyk-Oczkowska is an established Polish contemporary painter with more than 30 years of artistic experience, whose art leans heavily into magical realism, emotional portraiture and dark surrealism.

Her work blurs the lines between expressive realism and structural abstraction.

She heavily utilizes palette knives, multi-layered paint applications, and controlled dripping techniques to construct depth and motion.

Her paintings frequently juxtapose softly modeled human portraits against dynamic, geometric, or architectural backgrounds.