Albert Rieger | Landscape painter

Austrian🎨 landscape and marine painter Albert Rieger (Trieste, 1834 - Vienna,1905) was the son and pupil of painter Giuseppe Rieger. He was also influenced by the works of the German artist Bernhard Fiedler (1816-1904). Rieger's preferred subjects were marines and landscapes.

In 1838 settled he with the family in Vienna.

His works were exhibited in many exhibitions in Munich and Paris works are presented in important collections, for example at the Museum of Altenburg and in Wroclaw.

Crown prince Rudolf bought his landscapes "Am Traunsee" and "Gosausee".

Rieger was awarded🎨 with Gold Austrian Medal and Great Golden Swedish-Norwegian Medal.

Pittore paesaggista, figlio del pittore Giuseppe, Albert Rieger nasce a Trieste nel 1932 (altri lo fanno nascere nel 1833 e nel 1834).

Dopo aver appreso i primi rudimenti dell’arte pittorica nello studio del padre grazie all’appoggio economico del barone Revoltella frequenta l’Accademia delle Belle Arti di Venezia dopo di che torna a Trieste ove apre uno studio e ove rimane sino al 1970 (qualche autore lo fa trasferire nel 1874), anno in cui si trasferisce a Vienna dove muore nel 1904.

Risulta abbia operato anche all’estero: Grecia, Italia, Francia, Gran Bretagna, Scandinavia ecc.

Molti dei suoi quadri (acquarelli e olio) sono stati utilizzati per incisioni e riproduzioni cromolitografiche; il suo nome è legato al mondo delle grotte per varie litografie della Grotta di Adelsberg (Postumia, Postojna, firmate assieme al padre Giuseppe), l’entrata della stessa grotte e per un opuscolo, sempre di litografie, sulla Grotta di Corniale (Vilenica jama) che risulta abbia visitato il 23 giugno 1849, dove firma sul libro dei visitatori.

Henri Matisse | Fauve painter / sculptor

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse [1869-1954] French painter, sculptor, draughtsman, printmaker and designer, one of the most illustrious artists of the 20th century.

From the 1920s he enjoyed an international reputation alongside Picasso as the foremost painter of his time.

Unlike Picasso, he was a late starter in art, and he was not quite so prolific or versatile, but for sensitivity of line and beauty of colouring he stands unrivalled among his contemporaries.

Mario Henrique, 1983 | Abstract portraitist

Mario Henrique is an artist based in Cascais, Portugal.

Graduated in Design from Lisbon’s University of Fine Arts, he started his career in online marketing and web development agencies.

Later on, as a creative director, he recruited and led teams in Portugal, Spain and Brazil.

As partner and head of design in one of these projects, he would eventually be part of a successful exit via acquisition, and then shifted his focus to contemporary painting, which had always been a parallel interest.

Victor Ostrovsky, 1949 | Best selling author

Victor Ostrovsky is the best selling author, and screenplay writer, of four books which were a worldwide phenomenon. His expertise on Judaism, Islam and security issues, made him a thought after speaker.

Victor has appeared on Larry King Live, The ABC, NBC, and CBS Nightly News, Prime Time Live, and dozens of other media venues worldwide.

His book "By Way of Deception" was banned for one week, but was overturned by the appeals court.

"The Israeli government, which won the temporary restraining order Wednesday, failed to prove that its agents' lives were endangered," said a statement by a four-judge panel of the New York Appellate Division.

20th century Art History and Sitemap

Twentieth-century art - and what it became as modern art - began with modernism in the late nineteenth century.

Nineteenth-century movements of Post-Impressionism (Les Nabis), Art Nouveau and Symbolism led to the first twentieth-century art movements of Fauvism in France and Die Brücke ("The Bridge") in Germany.

Fauvism in Paris introduced heightened non-representational colour into figurative painting.

Die Brücke strove for emotional Expressionism.

Henri Matisse | Woman on a Terrace, 1907 | Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg

Francis De Saint-Genies | Surrealist / Symbolist painter

Francis De Lassus Saint-Genies (1925-2018) was a French artist born in Brittany at Val André.

After his studies at Julian's Academy in Paris, he dedicates himself for a long time to the portrait.

In search of the secret character of his models, he has to reach a very personal expression where the outer world, often inversed, encloses the reflection of the individual mystery.

Joseph Todorovitch, 1978 | Figurative painter

American painter Joseph Michael Todorovitch was born in San Gabriel, California.

This artist was inspired as a child by his grandmother, and has enjoyed the creative process as long as he can remember.

Realizing art is life, he aggressively began to study drawing as a high school student, and then attended Cal State University Fullerton where he received his bachelor degree in fine art.

Shahrzad Hazrati, 1957 | Figurative painter

Shahrzad Hazrati was born in Ghorveh, Iran.
Student of interior architecture at the Polytechnic University in Tehran 1975-77;
Student at fine arts Department in the Tehran University 1978-79;
Student at fine arts Department in the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul 1988-90;
Member of the Turku Artist Association 1993 -
Artist of the Year 2002;
Member of Finish Artist Association.

Jack Vettriano | Fallen angels

Jack Vettriano (1951-2025) was born in Fife, Scotland in 1951.

After leaving school at 15, he followed his father down the mine, working as an apprentice engineer.

He later moved on to white-collar jobs in management services. Vettriano took up painting as a hobby in the 1970s when a girlfriend bought him a set of watercolours for his birthday and from then on, he spent much of his spare time teaching himself to paint.

He learned his craft by copying Old Masters, Impressionists, Surrealists and a plethora of Scottish artists.

Elio Ferrara, 1945 | Genre painter

Elio Ferrara was born in Naples, Italy. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts and then worked as a set designer at the Teatro San Carlo and the Teatro San Ferdinando with Eduardo De Filippo, then worked with the RAI and other broadcasters.

Meanwhile he continues his work as a painter who exercises since 1960 by joining the current of the new figuration, to address later his attention to the traditions and customs of his city, describing it with figurative language, customs.

His production is known to the world, he has a good market in America, Germany, France, Brazil; is also present in many public and private collections, embassies, art galleries, collections of famous artists, politicians and well-known professionals.

Arsen Kurbanov / Арсен Курбанов, 1969

Aрсен Курбанов was born in Mahachkala, Dagestan republic of Dagestan, in the USSR. His mother and father were artists as is his brother.

In 1988 he completed coursework at the Jamal Dagestan Art College, receiving a red diploma - a symbol of scholastic excellence. Kurbanov was immediately accepted into the Repin Institute in St. Petersburg, where he studied with the late Neprintsov, graduating in 1994.

After graduating in 1994, Kurbanov exhibited his final artwork to the graduation committee and was accepted into the "Union of Russian Artists".

Evita Medina | Symbolist / Surrealist painter

Evita Medina is an artist residing in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

From a young age she felt the need to paint as the best way to express what she could not count on with words.

There is therefore not a moment, a starting point in her life in which she decided to take the brushes, somehow they were always there, traveling the same way and being the reason for her existence.

Fausto Zonaro | Orientalist / Genre painter

Fausto Zonaro🎨 (18 September 1854 - 19 July 1929) was an Italian painter🎨, best known for his Realist style paintings of life and history of the Ottoman Empire.

Born in Padua, Fausto Zonaro graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.

He exhibited his work in Italy in the late 1880s before moving to Paris.

In 1891, at his wife's request, Zonaro moved from Venice to Istanbul and settled in a house in Taksim, on the northern bank of the Golden Horn.

He quickly adapted to the Turkish way of life, speaking Turkish, wearing a fez and attending the Selamlðk.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Zonaro see:

• Fausto Zonaro | Orientalist painter🎨

Jaroslaw Jasnikowski, 1976 | Surrealist painter

Jaroslaw Jasnikowski is a Polish surrealist painter🎨 of the young generation.

He lives in Legnica. He graduated from Głogowskie Studium Sztuk Plastycznych where he received a diploma under the supervision of Telemach Pilitsis in September 2001.

His artistic work include three individual exhibitions:

• Dziedzictwo Czwartego Wymiaru - The heritage of the fourth dimension, Legnica 1995;
• Dziecko gwiazd - Stars child, Legnica 2000;
• Zmierzch naszych czasów -The twilight of our times, Legnica 2002

and the range of group exhibitions.

Jaroslaw was also awarded🎨 the prize for the artistic achievements from the President of Legnica.

Jack Vettriano | Tales of Love and other Stories

Jack Vettriano, OBE (1951-2025) was a Scottish painter.

Critics hate him.

Celebrities collect him.

The public buy his posters in their millions: Jack Vettriano reveals the dark side that has made him our most controversial artist.

Dalai Lama: "L’amore totale si fonda non sull’attaccamento, ma sull’altruismo.."

• "To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible".

• "Rimanere indifferenti alle sfide che dobbiamo affrontare è indifendibile"!

• "If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant".

• "Se l'obiettivo è nobile, il fatto che venga realizzato o meno durante la nostra vita è in gran parte irrilevante".

• "What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up".

• "È importante rendersi conto abbastanza presto che la vita umana non è una questione semplice. Per viverla bene e non scoraggiarsi quando sorgono problemi è indispensabile acquisire una forza interiore".

Steve Hanks

Erwin Blumenfeld | Fashion / Surrealist photographer

Erwin Blumenfeld (26 January 1897 - 4 July 1969) was one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century.

An experimenter and innovator, he produced an extensive body of work including drawings, collages, portraits, celebrity portraiture, advertising campaigns and his renowned fashion photography both in black and white and color.

He was born in Berlin, and in 1941 emigrated to the United States, where he soon became a successful and well-paid fashion photographer, working as a free-lancer for Harper's Bazaar, Life and American Vogue.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553)

Il pittore ed incisore Tedesco rinascimentale Lucas Cranach detto il Vecchio iniziò la sua carriera con un apprendistato presso la bottega del padre incisore, con il quale collaborò fino al 1498.

Tra il 1501-1504 viaggiò lungo la valle del Danubio fino a Vienna, dove frequentò gli ambienti umanisti. In quegli anni dipinse delle tavole di ispirazione religiosa (San Girolamo 1502, Crocifissione 1503, Riposo durante la fuga in Egitto 1504) ed il ritratto di un umanista viennese, il dottor Cuspinian e sua moglie, nel 1504.

Aristide Maillol | Art Nouveau / Nabi painter /sculptor

Maillol (1861-1944) began his career as a painter and tapestry designer, but after c. 1900 devoted himself to three-dimensional work, becoming one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century.

He concentrated almost exclusively on the female figure in the round, consciously wishing to strip form of all literary associations and architectural context.

Although inspired by the Classical tradition of Greek and Roman sculpture, his figures have all the elemental sensuousness and dignity associated with the Mediterranean peasant.

Pablo Picasso | The figures

Pablo Picasso [1881-1973] was born in Málaga, Spain. The son of an academic painter, José Ruiz Blasco, he began to draw at an early age. In 1895 the family moved to Barcelona, and Picasso studied there at La Lonja, the academy of fine arts.

His visit to Horta de Ebro from 1898-1899 and his association with the group at the café Els Quatre Gats in about 1899 were crucial to his early artistic development. Picasso’s first exhibition took place in Barcelona in 1900, and that fall he went to Paris for the first of several stays during the early years of the century.

Picasso settled in Paris in April 1904, and his circle of friends soon included Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Gertrude and Leo Stein, as well as two dealers, Ambroise Vollard and Berthe Weill.

Vadim Stein, 1967 | Fashion photographer

Вадим Штейн is talented Ukrainian photo art creator based in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Stein was born in Kiev, Ukraine, where he got an education in the sphere of sculpture and restoration.

From 1985-1992 he worked in the Theater of Plastic Drama - as an actor and a lighting designer.

After leaving the theater he got keen on decorative sculpture and graphics.

John Jude Palencar, 1957 | Fantasy illustrator

John Jude Palencar is an American fantasy, science fiction, and horror artist. Over 100 book covers have been adorned by his art, including all four covers of the Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paolini. He graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design in 1980.

Work

Palencar has exhibited in numerous group shows in galleries, colleges and universities throughout the United States. Demand for his work extends into Europe and the Pacific rim through sales of his original paintings, second-rights usages and commissions.

He was a featured artist for IDEA Magazine in Japan. Many private and corporate collections throughout the United States and Europe include his paintings.

Palencar has created covers for several novels by Stephen King, who also holds Palencar's work in his private collection.

Sharon Sprung, 1953 | Figurative painter

Sharon Sprung is a Brooklyn based award-winning artist who studied at Cornell, The Art Students League in New York and the National Academy of Design.

Apart from her creative practice, Sprung also teaches painting and drawing at National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts and The Art Students League.

Her work has won numerous awards and is featured in prominent public collections, including the United States House of Representatives, Bell Laboratories, ATandT, Princeton University, Sherman and Sterling and the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Van Gogh: "There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people"

Laura Knight (1877-1970) A Girl Reading, probably Florence Carter Wood (later Mrs Alfred Munnings)

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German writer and statesman, 1749-1832)

La musica lava via dall'anima la polvere della vita di ogni giorno.

- Berthold Auerbach (Poeta e scrittore Tedesco, 1812-1882)

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

- Leonardo da Vinci (Inventore, artista e scienziato Italiano, 1452-1519)

Le idee sono per la letteratura ciò che la luce è per la pittura.

- Paul Bourget - (Scrittore e saggista Francese, 1852-1935)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Literature

Literature was integrated into the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's artistic practice from the beginning (including that of Rossetti), with many paintings making direct literary references.

For example, John Everett Millais' early work, Isabella (1849), depicts an episode from John Keats' Isabella, or, the Pot of Basil (1818).

Rossetti was particularly critical of the gaudy ornamentation of Victorian gift books and sought to refine bindings and illustrations to align with the principles of the Aesthetic Movement.

Rossetti's key bindings were designed between 1861-1871.

He collaborated as a designer/illustrator with his sister, poet Christina Rossetti, on the first edition of Goblin Market (1862) and The Prince's Progress (1866).

Matthijs Roling, 1943 | Figurative painter

Dutch painter and teacher Matthijs Röling (Oostkapelle, 1943) received the prize for his entire painted oeuvre. The jury was particularly impressed by the fact that his teaching at the Academie Minerva in Groningen has been no less inspirational to large numbers of younger artists than his painting.

In 1983 Matthijs Röling began working on large-scale decorative projects, such as monumental canvases and wall and ceiling paintings. In recent years these projects have come to occupy an increasingly important place within Röling's highly diverse oeuvre. His manner has been compared to that of the Old Masters, and the illusionistic scenes he paints on walls and ceilings are reminiscent of frescoes.

Notwithstanding these parallels with the past, Röling's work is distinguished by his independence, integrity and craftsmanship.

Frederic Shields | Pre-Raphaelite painter

Frederic James Shields (Hartlepool, 14 March 1833 - 26 February 1911, London) painter and decorative artist, born at Hartlepool on 14 March 1833, was the third of the six children of John Shields, a bookbinder and printer, by his wife Georgiana Storey, daughter of an Alnwick farmer. His brothers and sisters all died in infancy. His father, after fighting as a volunteer in Spain for Queen Isabella (1835-6), removed to Clare Market in London, where the boy's mother opened a dressmaker's shop.

Frederic attended the charity school of the parish of St. Clement Danes until the age of fourteen. Having shown an early talent for drawing, he worked from the antique at the British Museum for a few months after leaving school, and on 4 Oct. 1847 was apprenticed to Maclure, Macdonald and Macgregor, a firm of lithographers.

His indenture was for a term of three years, but after about a year he was sent for by his father, who had obtained work at Newton-le-Willows, although he was unable to provide for his family. He helped Frederic to find employment at 5s. a week with a firm of mercantile lithographers in Manchester.

An ingrained piety, a love of literature, and a passion for sketching enabled Shields to face stoically nine years of grinding poverty and of uncongenial drudgery at commercial lithography.

Vittorio Matteo Corcos

Vittorio Matteo Corcos (Livorno, 4 October 1859 - 8 November 1933) was an Italian painter, known for his portraits.

Many of his genre works depict winsome and finely dressed young men and women, in moments of repose and recreation.

In 1880, the artist established himself in the Parisian art scene, falling into the circles of Léon Bonnat and Giovanni Boldini.

Between 1881-1886, he frequently exhibited at the Salon.

His works are held in the collections of the Uffizi in Florence and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome.

Abbott Fuller Graves | Impressionist painter

Abbott Fuller Graves (1859-1936) was an American painter and illustrator who specialized in decorative open air garden paintings and floral still lifes.

His use of thick brushstrokes, bright colors, and natural light shows the influence of European impressionism.

Graves was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on April 15, 1859, the son of James Griswold Graves and Eliza Nicholls (Fuller). Hoping to become an architect, Graves attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but did not graduate.

Graves went to Paris and Italy in 1884 to refine his skills as a flower painter. In Europe, he roomed with Edmund C. Tarbell.

Max Nonnenbruch | Young Beauty, 1892

Max Nonnenbruch (25.01.1857 in Viersen; † 13.03.1922 in München, Munich) was a famous German painter🎨 in the Art Nouveau🎨 Jugendstil Early 1900s Period.

Nonnenbruch was one of the most widely exhibited and popular painters of fin de siecle Germany; his work was frequently reproduced in woodcut or photogravure and appeared in the great journals and newspapers of the day.

A member of the Munich School, the name given to a group of artists who studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich during its most influential period, Nonnenbruch originally concentrated on history and genre painting🎨, the specialty of Wilhelm Lindenshmit the Younger (1829-1895), his professor at the Academy.

Guglielmo Ciardi | Veduta painter

Guglielmo Ciardi (1842-1917) was an Italian painter. He was born in Venice, the son of an official of the Austrian government.

Ciardi enrolled in 1861 at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied perspective with Federico Moja and landscape and seascape with Domenico Bresolin, taking over the latter’s teaching post in 1894.

He went to Florence in 1868 and formed friendships with Giovanni Costa and the Macchiaioli painters.

Elise MacDonald | Magical Surrealist painter

Born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Graduated with a BA(Fine Art) from Wits University.

First exhibition at Crake Gallery, Jhb in 1982.

Thereafter exhibited in group show at the Everard Read Gallery, Jhb.

After relocating to Knysna in 1996 exhibited at Trent Read's Knysna Fine Art gallery.

After a serious illness in 2009, her passion for painting was re-ignited.

In 2012 Elise had a mini exhibition at Trent Read’s Knysna Fine Art Gallery and in 2015 she had a solo exhibition at the Rust-en-Vrede Gallery in Cape Town.

Elise’s work is now in private collections worldwide.