Andy Scott | The Kelpies in Falkirk, Scotland

The Kelpies are 30-metre high horse-head sculptures, standing next to a new extension to the Forth and Clyde Canal, and near River Carron, in The Helix, a new parkland project built to connect 16 communities in the Falkirk Council Area, Scotland. The sculptures were designed by sculptor Andy Scott and were completed in October 2013. The sculptures form a gateway at the eastern entrance to the Forth and Clyde canal, and the new canal extension built as part of The Helix land transformation project. The Kelpies are a monument to horse powered heritage across Scotland.

Thomas Schaller, 1956 | Architecture in Watercolor

"There is a universe of possibility that spans the distance between what we look at and what we see.

And in that space is our experience of the world.

This is what I try to paint - the experience of seeing my world - from perspectives both external and from within.

And as such, dreams, memories, and pure imagination are every bit as valid as is anything that can be physically observed" - Thomas Schaller.

Following a 20-year career in New York City as an architect and architectural artist, Tom Schaller is now based in Los Angeles, California where he devotes himself full-time to artwork in the watercolor medium.

He has long been considered one of the foremost architectural artists in the world. In the field, he has won every major award for his artwork - including being a two-time recipient of the Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize.

Alan King, 1952 | Massurrealism Art Movement

Alan King was born in Greenwich, South East London. His current style of artwork only really developed in 1999 when he decided to experiment with combining photography with his geometric illusionary pieces with the aid of computer software. His contemporary Surreal style was soon recognised and he was invited to join the Massurrealism Movement in 2004.

James Gwynne | Figurative painter

An award-winning artist, Dr. James Gwynne is a professor of visual arts at County College of Morris, who discovered his talents through chance and circumstance.

He initially attended college thinking he would become a doctor. When he took a drawing class during his first year of college, however, he knew he needed to switch majors.

"I knew from then on that art was my passion and I had to follow it", says Gwynne.

Don Hatfield, 1947 | Romantic Impressionist painter

Don Hatfield, who born and lives in Napa, California, is one of the most innovative Impressionists of our time. His style of painting softly blends figures of realism with the gentle touch of classic impressionism. Don strives to create paintings that bond themselves to the viewer. In the vein of Romantic Impressionism.

He shows the viewer that beauty can arise from one stirring moment; a family reunion, a young boy searching for shells on the beach or the warmth of the sun touching a mother and her child. His paintings carry light and form to a new and extremely personal degree.

Julian Alden Weir | Tonalist painter

Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919), a leading American impressionist, was born in West Point, New York. He was the son of Robert Weir, a drawing instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and half-brother of John Weir, first director of the art program at Yale University.

He took art classes at the National Academy of Design before traveling to Paris in 1873 to study under the noted French Academician Jean-Léon Gérôme and later at the École des Beaux-Arts.

After trips to the Netherlands and Spain between 1873-1877, and summers spent painting in French villages, Weir returned to New York and took a studio near Washington Square, where many of his contemporaries also resided. On a second trip to Europe in 1880, Weir won an honorable mention at the Paris Salon.

John Henry Twachtman | Tonalist painter

John Henry Twachtman (1853-1902) was born in Cincinnati to German immigrants.

Among the various jobs that Frederick Twachtman took to support his family was that of window shade decorator, work that young Twachtman also assumed when he was fourteen years old.

Concurrently, John Twachtman attended classes at the Ohio Mechanics Institute.

After 1871 he was enrolled part-time in the McMicken School of Design, where he met Frank Duveneck.

Sally Storch, 1952 | Storyteller artist

Sally Storch comes from an artistic family with roots in the Paris school of the early Twentieth Century. Her great aunt Bertha Rihani lived and painted in Paris during the 1920’s and kept the company of Henri Matisse🎨 and in particular Kees Van Dongen🎨.

Another aunt, painter Stephanie Stockton, attended The Art Students League in New York and apprenticed with John Steuart Curry in the 1930’s. Storch spent a great deal of time with both aunts, and both of these women painters were particularly influential to her as a young girl.

Hans Jochem Bakker, 1948 | Portrait Mixed media painter

Dutch Conceptual Artist Hans Jochem Bakker as a self taught undergone remarkable development. He was initially inspired by the mystical world of Salvador Dali with his talent was not trained for that of his fellow artists. Even celebrities like Miró and Picasso influenced the early work of Jochem. Between 1980-1990 took place a sensational change. The very detailed at times surreal work gave way to the broad approach of the expression. Notable are the movement and energy that are reflected in the new work. Old motifs such as birds, horses, bullfights and women remain interested in his work and persistence.

Ger Doornink, 1949 | Portrait Mixed media painter

Dutch Conceptual Artist Ger Doornink is a creative multitalent specialized in painting, illustration and photography. He is combining different techniques the outcome is often more than surprising.
Doornink received an education at the Arnhem Art Academy in Publicity. Doornink is a very versatile artist who started his career as designer and photographer in the advertisement business and the fashion world. Here he build quite the reputation, using an alias: Gerry the Cat.
He lived and worked in Tokyo, where he became acquainted with the Japanese style, and used this in his designs.

Mark Olich, 1974 | Ballet dancers | Conceptual photography

Марк Олич is a Russian photographer born in Omsk. A graduate of theatre and art schools, Mark has been engaged with photography since 2002.

Mark has always drawn but suffered from a creative crisis after moving to St. Petersburg.

He became a set designer at the Mariinsky Theatre, where he began to capture ‘behind the scenes’, images of the dancers training and rehearsing in the theater.

The aim of his work is to show what is happening in the boundary that separates the inside, the backstage, from the outer, public performance.

Dan McCaw, 1942 | Romantic impressionist painter

American painter Dan McCaw raised in Montana and during his academic art career attended the Montana Institute of Technology, in Butte Montana; Academy of Art University, in San Francisco; Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, California; and the Bongart School of Art, in Santa Monica, California.

A solid foundation of design, color and value distinguishes McCaw's expressive paintings and provides a starting point for an exciting exploration of new ways to look at familiar objects.

Ernest Lawson | Impressionist painter

Ernest Lawson (1873-1939), a progressive artist and member of a group of artists called The Eight, achieved early recognition with his impressionist landscape paintings but later in life experienced personal tragedy and artistic isolation. Born in Nova Scotia in 1873, Lawson studied at the Art Students League, New York, from 1891-1892 and took summer classes in Cos Cob, Connecticut, under J. Alden Weir and John Twachtman. Lawson’s early work has delicate tones and harmonious textures reminiscent of Twachtman’s style. While living in France from 1893-1896, Lawson briefly attended the Académie Julian.

Irina Rumyantseva, 1983 | Abstract Mixed media painter

Irina Rumyantseva was born in St Petersburg, Russia. She achieved the highest grade for her art studies at university and soon became a highly respected artist in Russia. At the age of 26 she came to England to further her career.
Since then she hasn't looked back, her name has become hugely popular in the UK and in many parts of the world. Her unique style of painting is highly sought after and to achieve so much in this short space of time, one can only imagine what the future brings for this talented artist.

Laurence Amélie | Fashion /Impressionist Romantic painter

Laurence Amélie, daughter of renowned Swiss abstract painter Gérard Schneider, continues the family tradition of painting following a successful career as Creative Director and Fashion designer of Bon Point in Paris.
Laurence paints from her idyllic country setting near Fontainebleau. It is the house where her father, a contemporary of Picasso, painted during the highly active mid-century abstract period.

Vyacheslav Khabirov, 1967

Vyacheslav Khabirov was born in Kazakhstan in the town of Ust-Kamenogorsk.

In his early childhood he showed great interest and love for art.

When a boy of 13, Vyacheslav began painting in oil as he considered it to be the best means of creating his landscapes.

Being a student of an Art school Vyacheslav participated in republic-wide exhibitions that took place in the capital of Kazakhstan Alma-Ata.

Maria Boohtiyarova and Andrei Belichenko

Andrei Belichenko / Андрей Беличенко and Maria Boohtiyarova / Мария Бахтиярова are two Russian artists, known for working in the Figurative style.

Andrei Belichenko was born in 1974 in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.

Henry Moret | Impressionist painter

Henry Moret (12 December 1856, Cherbourg - 5 May 1913, Paris) was a French Impressionist painter.

He was one of the artists who associated with Gauguin at Pont-Aven in Brittany.

Little is known of Moret's life until he began his military service in 1875.

Jules La Villette, his commander in Lorient, who first noticed his artistic talents, introduced him to Ernest Corroller, a drawing teacher and marine painter.

Gustave Loiseau, il pittore che raccontò Parigi

L'espressione pittorica di Loiseau si mantenne sempre nell'alveo della corrente post-impressionista e se egli mostrò qualche evidente influenza da parte di altri maestri, non si può che fare il nome di Claude Monet, specie osservando le sue rappresentazioni dei porti, delle falesie e delle chiese, eseguite in piccole serie.

Loiseau dipingeva all'aria aperta, immerso nei paesaggi che lo ispiravano, in Bretagna, in Normandia, od anche nei centri abitati, come Moret-sur-Loing o la stessa Parigi.

Fidel Garcia, 1960 | Dreams of Love

"Art expresses the soul of humanity in our common journey across the ages" - Fidel Garcia

Born in Mexico City, Fidel Garcia is a self-taught painter and creator.

At age seven, Garcia’s artistic ability became apparent to his father, an artist himself, who encouraged and supported his passion for creativity.

He developed an unique international dimensional style that is imaginatively imbued with the visual power of Renaissance artists such as Spanish Baroque master Diego Velazquez, American master John Singer Sargent, French master William Bouguereau, Spanish surreal master Salvador Dali, and Austrian design master Gustav Klimt.

Gustave Loiseau | Paris painting

French painter🎨 Gustave Loiseau (3 October 1865-10 October 1935) was born in Paris into an affluent commercial family.

He was largely self-taught and during his youth he worked with a decorator, painting the outskirts of Paris in his free time.

An inheritance from his grandmother provided him with a certain degree of financial comfort and independence that allowed him to concentrate fully on paining and to move to Montmartre.

Here he met Maxime Maufra, with whom he remained friends for the rest of his life.

He enrolled at the École des Arts Décoratifs for a year, the only training in colour and drawing which he received.

Giorgio Morandi | Modern Still Life painter

Giorgio Morandi (July 20, 1890 - June 18, 1964) was born on July 20, 1890, in Bologna, Italy, one of the oldest and most prestigious University towns in Europe. 

Nearly all his life was spent there working quietly in a modest studio and apartment that he shared with his three sisters. Except for occasional trips to Venice, Florence or Rome for exhibitions of his paintings and etchings, or summer excursions to the village of Grizzana in the Apennine hills above his native city, Morandi scarcely ever left Bologna. 

Antonietta Raphaël | The Roman School

Antonietta Simonovna Raphaël Mafai (1895 - 5 September 1975) was an Italian sculptor and painter of Jewish heritage and Lithuanian birth, who founded the Scuola Romana (Roman School) movement together with her husband Mario Mafai.

She was an artist characterised by a profound anti-academic conviction, also affirmed by her sculptures which, especially after World War II, dominated her output.

They highlighted the tender and vibrant carnality present in stone, with works such as Miriam dormiente (Sleeping Miriam) and Nemesis.

Mario Mafai | The Roman school

Mario Mafai (12 February 1902 - 31 March 1965) was an Italian painter. With his wife Antonietta Raphaël he founded the modern art movement called the Scuola Romana, or Roman school.

Mafai left school very early, preferring to attend, with Scipione, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma.

His influences in those years were Roman galleries and museums, and the Fine Arts Library at Palazzo Venezia.

Jonas Lie | Expressionist painter

Jonas Lie (April 29, 1880 - January 18, 1940) was a Norwegian-born American painter.

He is best known for colorful paintings of coastlines of New England and city scenes of New York City.

Jonas Lie was born in Moss, in Østfold county, Norway.

His father Sverre Lie, was a civil Norwegian engineer and his mother Helen Augusta Steele, was an American from Hartford, Connecticut.

His father was a brother of Thomasine Lie who had married their cousin Jonas Lie, the famous Norwegian author, whom the painter was named after.

Boris Grigoriev | Russian Avant Garde movement

Boris Dimitrievitch Grigoriev /Бори́с Дми́триевич Григо́рьев was a Russian painter born in Moscow. He was a part of the Russian Avant Garde movement who also wrote regularly for the magazine “Satyricon” and “New Satyricon”. For biographical notes -in english and italian- see Part 1 - Boris Grigoriev [1886-1939].

Paul Cézanne | The Drawings / Watercolours

"C’è una logica colorata: il pittore non deve che obbedire a lei, mai alla logica della mente".

"There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other".

Paul Cézanne

Robert de Niro | Abstract Expressionist painter

Robert Henry De Niro, better known as Robert De Niro, Sr. (May 3, 1922 - May 3, 1993) was an American abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.
Robert De Niro, Sr., was born in Syracuse, New York, to an Italian American father, Henry Martin De Niro (1897–1976), whose parents emigrated from Ferrazzano, in the province of Campobasso, Molise, and an Irish American mother, Helen M. (née O'Reilly; 1899–1999). He was the eldest of three children; he and siblings John and Joan were raised in Syracuse, New York.

Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen | Surrealist /Abstract painter

Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen (December 24, 1909 - September 13, 1957) was a Danish painter, writer and art theorist.

Born in Copenhagen, he studied under Axel Revold at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts from 1927-1929, and then, under Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky at Bauhaus Dessau from 1930 to 1931.

He was a Surrealist painter and agitated for the style in several publications.

Stanislas Lepine | Seine painting

Born in Caen in 1836, Victor Edouard Stanislas Lépine (1836-1892) began his artistic career following the manner of the ship-painter Johan Barthold Jongkind and specialising in the rendering of nautical views such as Sailing Boats in Caen Harbour. In 1855 the painter moved to Paris and in 1859 he made his début at the Salon, exhibiting Port of Caen, Moonlight Effect.
Stanislas Lépine specialised in painting picturesque urban views, recurrently choosing to feature the River Seine and the old streets of Paris. In 1860 Lépine undertook a more professional apprenticeship under the guidance of Jean Baptiste-Camille Corot and during this period met the artist Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904).

Harald Engman | Cityscape painter

Harald Rudyard Engman (1903-1968) was a Danish painter. Above all, he is remembered for his fierce use of satire in criticizing and resisting the German occupation of Denmark during World War II.

Little has been published about Engman's life. It is known that he traveled as a working seaman and spent some time living in New York City's Chinatown around 1920.

He began to show paintings in Copenhagen in the mid 1920s. He became part of a group of self-styled "Underground Painters".

His shows always inspired controversy as he utilized caricature and satire to mercilessly criticize social ills and those in power especially the growing power of the Nazi Party in Germany.

Jan Mankes | Symbolist / Realist painter

Jan Mankes (15 August 1889, Meppel, Drenthe - 23 April 1920, Eerbeek) was a Dutch painter*. He produced around 200 paintings, 100 drawings and 50 prints before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 30.

His restrained, detailed work ranged from self-portraits to landscapes and studies of birds and animals. His work is now exhibited in his native Netherlands in the Museum of Modern Art Arnhem, Museum Belvédère Heerenveen and Museum MORE Gorssel.

Howard Schatz, 1940 | Surrealist photographer

The photographs of Howard Schatz are exhibited in museums and photography galleries internationally and are included in innumerable private collections.

He has received international acclaim for his work and has won virtually every award in his field including numerous “Photographer of the Year” awards and Gold Medals in the most prestigious competitions.

His work has been published in twenty-three monographs.

William Merritt Chase | The Plein Air Scenes

William Merritt Chase [1849-1916] won many honors at home and abroad, was a member of the National Academy of Design, New York, and from 1885 to 1895 was president of the Society of American Artists.

He became a member of the Ten American Painters after John Henry Twachtman died.

Chase's creativity declined in his later years, especially as modern art took hold in America, but he continued to paint and teach into the 1910s.

During this period Chase taught such up and coming young artists as Arthur Hill Gilbert and Edward Hopper.

One of his last teaching positions was at Carmel, California in the summer of 1914.

Camille Claudel | L’Abandon, 1988-1905

The present work, known in its final state as L’Abandon, can trace its origin to the 1888 plaster by Claudel known as Sakountala. Based on the eponymous Indian legend of the 5th century in which the heroine loses the affection of her beloved prince, only to regain it once more, the plaster was awarded an honorable mention at the Salon that same year. In fact, Sakountala most likely inspired Rodin and his famous composition of the following year, L’Eternelle idole.

Max Buri | Portrait / Genre painter

Max Alfred Buri (1868-1915) was an Swiss painter. While still at school he was given drawing lessons by Paul Volmar (1832-1906) in Berne.

From 1883 he was a pupil of Fritz Schider (1846-1907) in Basle, where he became acquainted with the works of Hans Holbein the younger and Arnold Böcklin.

In 1886 he went to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, transferring in 1887 to Simon Hollosy's painting school.