Shaun Berke, 1983 | Symbolist /Figurative painter

Shaun Berke - American painter, philosopher and outdoorsman from Thousand Oaks, California.

"Explorations in culture cultivated my dedication to nature, unearthing insights from mind, myth, and man".

Graduate: Moorpark College, Art Center College of Design, The Nerdrum🎨 School.

Member: The Getty Research Institute, World Wide Kitsch, The Halkyon Guild, The Alpine Fellowship.

Awards🎨 from The Art Renewal Center, Westlake Village Art Guild, Thousand Oaks Art Association.

Gerda Wegener | Wegener’s wife In 'The Danish Girl'

Gerda Wegener: The Lady Gaga of the 1920s

The Danish Girl tells the story of the painter Einar Wegener, who had the world’s first gender-reassignment surgery and became Lili Elbe.

But his wife Gerda had a fascinating life and career of her own.

by Helen Russell, The Guardian News

Eddie Redmayne is already being Oscar-tipped for his latest role in Tom Hooper’s biopic, The Danish Girl - the story of the painter Einar Wegener, who underwent the world’s first gender-reassignment operation to become Lili Elbe. But there was another woman behind Einar and Lili.

Walter Osborne (1859-1903) Genre painter

Walter Frederick Osborne was an Irish🎨 Impressionist / Post-Impressionism landscape / portrait painter, best known for his documentary depictions of late 19th century working class life.

Most of his paintings are figurative and focus on women, children, the elderly, the poor, and the day-to-day life of ordinary people on Dublin streets, as well as series of rural scenes.

He also produced cityscapes, which he painted from both sketches and photographs.

Jules Bastien-Lepage | Naturalist painter

The day after French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884) died at his Paris studio on rue Legendre, on the 10th December 1884, the world press announced his premature death and burial in the family cemetery in Damvillers in the Meuse region of France.

In just ten productive years, this son of a modest farming family had won an eminent place in the French and international art scene, even if it was challenged at times.

Halil Pasha | Signora con guanti / Lady in gloves, 1886

Eseguita dal pittore Halil Pasha (1857-1939), la Lady in Gloves del 1886, anticipò l'altra tela, la Lady in Gloves, nota anche come "Madam X", (1889) per la quale, al pittore Turco gli fu assegnato un premio alla Mostra Internazionale di Parigi del 1889.

La modella della Madam X, fu quasi certamente una scrittrice, la moglie del pittore Aliye Hanim.

La Madam X fu elogiata dai principali critici dell'epoca per la sua "finitura nitida" e fu paragonata al lavoro del pittore Francese Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904).

Halil Pasha | Lady in Gloves, 1886

Daniela Astone, 1980 | Figurative Realist painter

Daniela Astone was born in Pisa, Italy and raised in Porto Santo Stefano, in Maremma (Italy), a costal town south of Florence. She discovered her passion for drawing and painting at a very young age, and began nourishing and cultivating her craft early on.

In 1998, after graduating from the High School for Visual Arts of Grosseto, she moved to Florence to study illustration at the International school of Comix.

Upon arriving, she first worked in illustration, then, in 2001, enrolled in The Florence Academy of Art🎨, where she is now an instructor. In 2003, Daniela participated, as a student, in the exhibition, "Realism Revisited" at Panorama Museum, Bad Frankenhausen, Germany.

Man Ray (1890-1976) | Quotes / Aforismi

• "An original is a creation motivated by desire. Any reproduction of an originals motivated be necessity. It is marvelous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human".
• "Is photography an art? There is no point in trying to find out if it is an art. Art is old-fashioned. We need something else".
• "Non ha senso continuare a chiedersi se la fotografia sia o meno una forma d'arte, perché l'arte è fuori moda e noi abbiamo bisogno di altro".

Man Ray (1890-1976) Paintings

Man Ray, original name Emmanuel Radnitzky photographer, painter and filmmaker who was the only American to play a major role in both the Dada and Surrealist movements🎨.

The son of Jewish immigrants -his father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress- Radnitzky grew up in New York City, where he studied architecture, engineering, and art, and became a painter. As early as 1911, he took up the pseudonym of Man Ray. As a young man, he was a regular visitor to Alfred Stieglitz’s "291" gallery, where he was exposed to current art trends and earned an early appreciation for photography.

Elzbieta Brozek, 1979 | The Red hat

Elzbieta Brozek is a Polish painter who works mainly a portrait of women, prefering to work in their paintings with red and orange tones using realism in some cases and in others you can see the influence of the symbolism of the austrian artist Gustav Klimt.

Shee has portrayed many characters known, as this of Angelina Jolie.

Giovanni Pascoli | Night Blooming Jasmine /Gelsomino notturno

Jacob Van Walscapelle 1644-1727

E s'aprono i fiori notturni,

nell'ora che penso a' miei cari.

Sono apparse in mezzo ai viburni

le farfalle crepuscolari.

Da un pezzo si tacquero i gridi:

là sola una casa bisbiglia.

Sotto l'ali dormono i nidi,

come gli occhi sotto le ciglia.

Alda Merini / Howard Pyle | Those like me.. / Quelle come me...

Howard Pyle (American Golden Age Illustrator, 1853-1911) | The mermaid, 1910

Quelle come me regalano sogni,

anche a costo di rimanerne prive…

Quelle come me donano l’Anima,

perché un’anima da sola è come

una goccia d’acqua nel deserto…

Quelle come me tendono la mano

ed aiutano a rialzarsi, pur correndo il rischio

di cadere a loro volta…

Robert Hagan, 1947 | Plein Air painter

Robert Hagan raised in the lush, languorous sub-tropical northern New South Wales, Australia and educated at Newcastle University, he communicates in a typical offhanded Aussie manner.

Widely traveled with studios in Suffolk, England, San Diego, USA, Southport, Australia and Pattaya, Thailand.

Robert goes about his art with confidence, humility and pragmatism.

He explains, "When you look at things you tend to concentrate on one element, a boy or girl at the waters edge, for example".

Edson Campos, 1955 | Post-Romantic painter

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Edson Campos has enjoyed sketching and painting since childhood. He is a completely self-taught artist.

He moved to the United States in 1978 where he quickly established himself as an artist of the highest caliber.

Campos has exhibited his lifelike, passionate paintings and drawings in major cities throughout the country, winning several awards🎨.

Scott Tallman Powers, 1972 | Genre painter

Powers began drawing as a child with his father who was a medical illustrator, photographer and fine artist. While watching and learning from him, his love of art began.

Scott’s education began in high school with two extremely influential and supportive art instructors.

This led to four years of intensive study at the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

There he trained under many important instructors in the fields of Oil painting, Watercolor, Drawing, Anatomy and Sculpture.

Mikki Senkarik, 1954 | A Touch of Greece

Mikki Senkarik, American painter🎨, was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee when her father was working on the Manhattan project. Later her family moved to Florida where she grew up with pet cats and dogs.

At nine she used babysitting money to buy her first horse. The orange groves were an ideal place to ride, which she did almost every day. She continued to own and raise horses until she switched to painting in oils.

Pavel Tchelitchew | Abstract /Surrealist painter

Pavel Tchelitchew /Па́вел Фёдорович Чели́щев (1898-1957), Russian-born painter🎨 and stage designer. Born in Moscow. In early youth made drawings influenced by the macabre Romanticism of Doré and Vrubel. Moved in 1918 after the Revolution to Kiev.

Was encouraged by Alexandra Exter; attended courses at Kiev Academy and received private lessons from Tchakrigine and the painter and stage designer Rabinovitch. Painted in an abstract🎨 style.

Left Russia in 1920 and spent 1921-3 in Berlin, where he had considerable success as a designer for the theatre and opera. Moved to Paris in 1923. Began to paint figures and portraits in restrained colours and with an air of reverie.

Stefano Bruzzi | Macchiaioli painter

Stefano Bruzzi (1835-1911) was an Italian painter, mainly of landscapes, with children and animals, in a style that recalls Filippo Palizzi.

Born in Emilia, he initially studied in Piacenza under professor Bernardino Massari.

At the age of 19 years, he was sent by his father to study in Rome for four years, becoming a follower of professor Castelli.

The Luminist Movement (1850-1875)

Luminism, late 19th-century painting style emphasizing a unique clarity of light.

It was characteristic of the works of a group of independent American painters who were directly influenced by the Hudson River school of painting.

The term, however, was not coined until 1954 by John Baur, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

The most important painters in the luminist style were John Frederick Kensett, Fitz Hugh Lane, and Martin Johnson Heade; the group also included George Tirrell, Henry Walton, and J.W. Hill.

Steve Henderson, 1957 | Romantic painter

A lifetime fine artist, Steve Henderson pursued a successful career in commercial illustration before turning to fine art fulltime.

Steve’s landscape, coastal, and figurative works, which he creates in oil, watercolor, or charcoal, have been in numerous national shows and exhibitions including: Oil Painters of America, Richard Schmidt Fine Art Auction, American Society of Marine Artists, Mystic Seaport, Paint the Parks and Best of America.

Michelle Torrez, 1956 | Expressionist painter

Known for her color work, Michelle Torrez does expressionistic oil paintings of figures that are intended to communicate the beauty of unlikely emotion, movement and life.

Torrez believes that the greatest influences on her work were the circumstances of her childhood and teenage years:

"My life has influenced me to look deeper to find the beauty and humanity in people and places. Even at an early age, I knew I was an artist".