Renoir: "If painting were not a pleasure to me I should certainly not do it"

Renoir was one of the leading painters of the Impressionist group.

He evolved a technique of broken brushstrokes and used bold combinations of pure complementary colours, to capture the light and movement of his landscapes and figure subjects.

Following a visit to Italy in 1881 his style changed, becoming more linear and classical.

Renoir was born in Limoges in south-west France, where he began work as a painter on porcelain.

Alice Bailly | Cubist painter

Alice Bailly (1872-1938) was a radical Swiss painter, known for her interpretations on cubism, fauvism, her wool paintings, and her participation in the Dada movement.

In 1906, Bailly had settled in Paris where she befriended Juan Gris, Francis Picabia and Marie Laurencin, avant-garde modernist painters who influenced her works and her later life.

Douglas Girard, 1969 | Imaginative realism painter

"...It is as if the artist has created his own mythology.

It is a very romantic, evocative painting, technically well balanced and very strong, formally" - Lucinda Barnes, curator of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art commenting on the painting "Journey".

Douglas Girard: The results are in for the Art Renewal Center’s 2014/2015 Salon! 2500 paintings were submitted from around the world by 1050 artists. 31% were chosen as finalists.

Hamish Blakely, 1968 | Love letters to my wife

Like many great artists, British painter Hamish Blakely has a muse.

And it is none other than his wife Gail!

The artist explains: "We men folk have a lot to learn, and I have learned a great deal from her since we met.

My art celebrates that mystifying blend of feminine beauty and strength.

While loyal to that enduring genre of the celebrated figure and venerated goddess in art, I also explore the majesty of a woman's presence".

Pablo Picasso | La nascita del Cubismo

Dopo un'ulteriore vacanza a Horta de Ebro nell'estate 1909, Picasso una volta ritornato a Parigi decise di allontanarsi dal pur pittoresco squallore di Montmartre e di affittare - insieme con Fernarde e il loro gatto siamese - un appartamento al numero 11 di boulevard de Clichy, nei pressi di place Pigalle.

Qui si dedicò con assoluta e piena dedizione ai propri quadri cubisti, dando vita a opere quali La femme assise (1909) e Ragazza con mandolino (1910) ed i ritratti effigianti Georges Braque (1909), Ambroise Vollard (1909-10) e Daniel-Heinrich Kahnweiler (1910).

Con queste tele Picasso, meditando sulla lezione di Cézanne, intendeva studiare il rapporto tra forma e spazio mediante il trattamento schematico dei piani e la scomposizione dei volumi: da queste premesse prese forma una fase che i critici d'arte definiranno «cubismo analitico».