Rembrandt | Self-Portrait, 1658

Of the many self-portraits Rembrandt painted over a lifetime, this is perhaps the greatest, not only for its poignant revelations of the self, but for his sure handling of paint.

The initial effect on viewers is daunting, as though they are confronting an ill-tempered monarch.

The strange costume he wears is timeless.

In place of a crown, he wears a large velvet artist's beret.

Rembrandt | Self-Portrait, 1658 | Frick Collection, New York

Laura Knight | Avant-Garde painter

Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) was one of the most popular and pioneering British artists of the twentieth century. Her artistic career took her from Cornwall to Baltimore, and from the circus to the Nuremberg Trials. She painted dancers at the Ballets Russes and Gypsies at Epsom races, and was acclaimed for her work as an official war artist.

Knight used portraiture to capture contemporary life and culture, and her paintings are remarkable for their diverse range of subjects and settings.

Lucien Fontanarosa | Post-Impressionist /Expressionist painter

Lucien Fontanarosa (1912-1975) was born to Italian parents in Paris where his father worked as a tailor. Fontanarosa grew up in Paris and also in Padua, Italy. He showed interest in art as a child, and spent his free time sketching the streets of Paris as a boy along the banks of the Seine. He took classes in these early years in Classical Art at the Academie Julian.

Dario de Regoyos | Plein air painter

Darío de Regoyos y Valdés was born in Ribadesella (Asturias) in 1857 and died in Barcelona in 1913. He spent his childhood and teenage years in Madrid. He began his artistic training in 1877 as a pupil of Carlos de Haes in the landscape department, receiving classes in landscape drawing. His eagerness to travel and learn about emerging foreign art movements spurred him in 1879 to visit Brussels, where his musician friends Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Fernández Arbós were then staying.

On the advice of Carlos de Haes, while in Brussels he contacted the man who had been Haes’s master years earlier, the Belgian painter Joseph Quinaux (1822-1895).

Fernando Fader | Post-impressionist painter

Fernando Fader (April 11, 1882 - February 25, 1935) was a French-born Argentine painter of the Post-impressionist school.

Fernando Fader was born in Bordeaux, France in 1882. His father, of Prussian descent, relocated the family to Argentina in 1884, settling in the western city of Mendoza before returning to France a few years later. Graduating from secondary school, Fader returned to Mendoza in 1898, where he first practiced his skill as an artist painting urban landscapes. Fader relocated to Munich in 1900, where he enrolled at a local vocational school. This training allowed him enrollment at the prestigious Munich Academy of Fine Arts, where he was mentored by Heinrich von Zügel, prominent in Europe's Naturalist Barbizon School.

Diane Millsap | Cityscape painter

Diane Millsap is a full-time, professional artist. Born in Southern California, and raised in the Chicago area, she and her husband now live in rural northern Illinois. She received her formal art training at Western Illinois University and from her mother, an accomplished watercolor artist. After a career in furniture design, she now paints full time.

Peter Gric, 1968 | Magic Realism painter

Peter Gric is Austrian painter, drawer and illustrator originally from Czech Republic.

In his art appear motives of futuristic landscapes and architecture, biomechanical surrealism and Fantastic realism. Gric is member of the art groups Libellule and Labyrinthe.

Peter Gric was born in Brno, former Czechoslovakia.

Rembrandt | Portrait of an Old Man, 1645

In this painting, Rembrandt turned his attention to the subject of old age, a recurring theme in his work that was also the focus of a large number of self portraits.

The identity of the figure in the painting is, however, unknown.

The rich costume that he is wearing gives no indication of the old man’s occupation or social status.

Rather, it appears to be an accessory belonging to the painter’s studio that he used as a powerfully effective decorative element.

Rex Preston, 1948 | Abstract Landscape painter

Born in Yardley, Birmingham, Rex Preston is one of Britain's leading landscape artists. He trained at Newcastle under Lyme School of Art and then Derby College of Art. Rex Preston has lived in Derbyshire for most of his life and although his home area of the Peak District and Pennines has exerted a huge influence on his painting, he travels the country searching for favourite subjects like Cornwall or the Lake District.

Daniel Courbois | Romantic Impressionist painter

Daniel Courbois belongs to one of the finest Impressionist painters in France. His paintings are on show at Gallery France which is located in Beynac et Cazenac. Dordogne, France.

Daniel Courbois travels throughout France and paints his romantic paintings plein air but uses also sheds as atelier which he ​encounters on his travels.

Daniel is an eccentric who doesn't like promoting himself and he has no permanent place or residence.

During 2014 we discovered Daniel by accident while he was working in the Dordogne area. | © Gallery France