Margaret Thomas, 1916 | Abstract / Still life painter

Margaret Thomas was born in London on 26 September 1916. She was introduced to the world of artists, at the age of 12, by her governess Dora Salman who had been at the Slade with Ethel Walker before the Great War. She took Margaret to see Walker at her Thames-side studio and introduced her to other women artists such as Clare Atwood, Beatrice Bland and Eleanor Best.

Hugo Mühlig | Genre painter

Hugo Mühlig (1854-1929) was born in Dresden to a family of artists; his father Meno Mühlig (1823-1873)

was an accomplished Landscape and Genre painter, as was his uncle Bernhard Mühlig (1829-1910).

He was encouraged to follow suit and received his first artistic training from his father before studying at the Dresden Academy of Art between 1877-1880 under the illustrator Viktor Paul Mohn (1842-1911).

Andrew Gifford, 1970 | London painting

Andrew Gifford (b. Sheffield, 1970) is now recognised as one of the most innovative landscape painters working today.

His paintings and light installations have been widely exhibited, including solo public shows at Leeds City Art Gallery (2004), Fruitmarket Gallery Edinburgh (2001) and Middlesbrough Art Gallery (2000). Collections include the New Art Gallery, Walsall and Chatsworth House and in private collections in Europe, USA and Japan. A monograph on the artist was published in 2005.

Michael Bilotta | Conceptual Surrealist Photographer

Michael Bilotta is an award winning conceptual fine art photographer from the Boston area in the U.S.A. All work is 100% photographic and the imagery is created as layered composites in Photoshop. Michael has a winning entry in Canon’s Project Imagination 2012, and his work has appeared in Practical Photoshop magazine and is the April 2013 Photographer of the Month in the Italian publication JC and Art Elite.

Michael is the winner of Camera Obscura Journal's Outstanding Photo Award, Non-Professional category for his photo "Riddles In The Dark" as well as receiving Honorable Mention for "The Collective" in the Professional category.

David Piddock, 1960 | Magic Realism painter

David Piddock has shown in an extensive number of exhibitions across England including: 'Focus on Drawing', Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, the Spectator Open at Christie's, The Gallery in Cork Street, the 'Gallery Fiction' at The Fine Art Society, London, and 'New Acquisitions' at The Museum of London.

Piddock has also exhibited internationally in Centro Modigliani, Florence and Palm Beach Contemporary Art Fair, USA.

Pasquale Romanelli | Andromeda

"As soon as Perseus, great-grandson of Abas, saw her fastened by her arms to the hard rock, he would have thought she was a marble statue" – Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book IV

With Andromeda and the sea monster Romanelli chose a subject that had fascinated artists since the Renaissance. The myth is best known from Ovid’s dramatic account in his Metamorphoses. The poet tells of the Aethiopean princess, whose mother, Queen Cassiopeia, boasted that her daughter was more beautiful than Poseidon’s Nereids. Enraged, the god of the sea sent a monstrous sea creature to devastate the coast of their Aethiopean kingdom. The distraught King consulted the Oracle of Apollo for guidance, only to be told that he had to sacrifice his daughter to the monster to put an end to its rampage.

Pasquale Romanelli | Ruth

The Florentine sculptor Pasquale Romanelli achieved an international reputation for his finely carved mythological and biblical marble figures. Romanelli began his training at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence under Luigi Pampaloni but was soon taught by the foremost Tuscan neoclassical sculptor, Lorenzo Bartolini. Remaining in Bartolini’s favour, he went on to become his collaborator and, upon the master’s death in 1850, the successor of his studio. Romanelli’s mythological and allegorical compositions were highly prized by a cosmopolitan clientele, and he exhibited select models in Paris.

Denise Henley | Portrait painter

Born in Guyana, South America, Denise Henley first realized her artistic passion at the tender age of eight. She spent much of her young life immersed in drawing.

As an adolescent, she moved to the United States to study art and after obtaining a B.A in Visual Arts, went on to pursue a career as an artist.

While she works in several mediums and subject-matters, her passion lies in capturing the beauty of the human figure. A constituent of realism, she continuously strives to perfect her drawing skills, believing it to be the backbone of the portrait process.

Balthus | Modern painter

Balthus, pseudonym of Balthazar Klossowski, also spelled Balthasar Klossowsky (born February 29, 1908, Paris, France - died February 18, 2001, La Rossinière, Switzerland), reclusive French painter who, in the midst of 20th-century avant-gardism, explored the traditional categories of European painting: the landscape, the still life, the subject painting, and the portrait.

He is best known for his controversial depictions of adolescent girls.

Eduard Gordeev | Impressionist Cityscape photographer

Eduard Gordeev /Эдуард Гордеев is a talented photographer who lives and works in St. Petersburg, Russia.

He creates artistic landscape photo series of his beloved city St. Petersburg.

These magnificent cityscape images look impressive and atmospheric with a bit of effect of acrylic paintings.

These urban streets seem drenched in mystery and rain.

His captures look as if they were acrylic paintings.

The reflections of city lights and all melting colors turn them into extraordinary pieces of art.

Vatican Light Show Calls Attention to Climate Change

Pope Francis inaugurated a special year of Mercy at the Vatican on Tuesday but fears of terrorism meant that the crowds in St Peter’s Square were much more modest than expected.

The Vatican had hoped that up to 100,000 people would take part in an open-air Mass in the huge Renaissance piazza, but in the end an estimated 40,000 people attended.

Pope Francis inaugurates special Year of Mercy.

Cornelia Hernes, 1979 | Classical Realist painter

Cornelia Hernes was born and raised in Norway until the age of twelve when her family moved to Africa where Cornelia went to boarding schools in Kenya and Tanzania. Much of her fascination with exploring the human condition through her paintings can be attributed to her early exposure to different cultures. Her work is centered on portraying and evoking a large scope of emotions, ultimately with the aim of celebrating life.

Maggie Taylor, 1961 | Digital Surrealist /Visionary painter

Maggie Taylor (born in Cleveland, Ohio) is an artist who works with digital images. She won the Santa Fe Center for Photography's Project Competition in 2004. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe and is represented within the permanent collections of several galleries and museums. She is the third wife of American photographer, Jerry Uelsmann.

She produces prints by scanning objects into a computer using a flatbed scanner, then layering and manipulating these images using Adobe Photoshop into a surrealistic montage.

Julius Olsson | Seascape painter

Albert Julius Olsson (1 February 1864 - 7 September 1942) was a British maritime artist and keen yachtsman.

He was born in Islington, London, to a Swedish father and an English mother. Olsson cruised with his yacht most summers, and The Studio (an illustrated fine arts and decorative arts magazine published in London from 1893 until 1964) commented: 'He knows the way from the Scillies to the Isle of Wight as most men know their way to the nearest railway station'.

He exhibited a painting of Newlyn in 1887, and sold a painting at Newlyn in 1897.

Henry Ossawa Tanner | Realist / Symbolist painter

Henry Ossawa Tanner, (born June 21, 1859, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.-died May 25, 1937, Paris, France), American painter who gained international acclaim for his depiction of landscapes and biblical themes.

After a childhood spent largely in Philadelphia, Tanner began an art career in earnest in 1876, painting harbour scenes, landscapes, and animals from the Philadelphia Zoo. In 1880 Tanner began two years of formal study under Thomas Eakins at Philadelphia’s prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), where he was the only African American.