Karol Bąk, 1961 | Illusiveness and surrealism

Karol Bąk was born in Koło in the Wielkopolska Region.

He graduated from the Fine Arts High School of Poznań with a degree in Interior Exhibition Arrangement.

In 1984, he was admitted to the Graphics Department of the State College of Art (currently the University of Arts in Poznań).

He already knew what direction he wanted to take in his studies - painting, graphics and sculpture were perceived as a prestigious pursuit of "searching for pure art".

He was confident he had made the best choice.

He graduated in 1989 with distinction, with two degrees in Graphics, under Prof. Tadeusz Jackowski, and Drawing in the studio of Prof. Jarosław Kozłowski.

Federico Beltran Masses | Symbolist / Art Déco painter

Federico Armando Beltrán Massés (1885-1949) was a Cuban-born Spanish artist, renowned as a master of color and the psychological portrait, as well as a painter of seductive images of strong, often scandalous, women.

Federico Beltrán Massés was born in Guaira de la Melena, Cuba.

He studied with the painter Joaquín Sorolla 1863-1923 at l’École des Beaux-Arts de Barcelona and, in 1905, he studied Spanish and European art at the Prado, Madrid.

Margarita Sikorskaia, 1968 | Figurative painter

Margarita Sikorskaia / Маргарита Сикорская was born in St. Petersburg, Russia.

She studied in the Department of Arts and Graphics, at the Hertzen Pedagogical University, in St. Petersburg.

In 1990 Margarita moved to the United States, where she currently lives and works as a fine artist.

During her artistic carrier she has exhibited works from New Orleans to Sun Valley.

In 2000 Margarita was selected to participate in a juried show; the Minnesota Museum of American Art's, Minnesota Biennial: 2D 2000.

Montserrat Gudiol | Symbolist / Figurative painter

Montserrat Gudiol (1933-2015) was an Spanish painter, daughter of the art historian and architect José Gudiol Ricart, curator and promoter of the Episcopal Museum of Vic.

On the mother's side, she is related to Teresa Ametller, sponsor of the Institut Ametller d'Art Hispànic, who founded and directed the father, José Gudiol.

In 1950, she studied restoration of old paintings and focuses specifically on painting on wood and paper.

It sets out in Spain but also in South Africa, the United States, Russia and Canada.

In 1981 she became the first woman admitted to the Real Academia Catalana of Fine Arts of San Jordi.

In 1998 she received the Cross of St. George.

Nicoletta Tomas Caravia, 1963 | Fantasy / Figurative painter

I was born in Madrid in 1963, of a Greek mother, Spanish father, grandmother Austrian. I currently reside in Valencia, Spain.

I am a self taught painter, and started my artistic career in Valencia (Spain) 1990, using in depth the pastel technique.

I concentrated on different themes such as indoor motifs, city views and bullfighting scenes. At this time and since 1998 I have given my paintings a new turn, centered on the human body.

I am in a constant search for new ways of artistic expressions, both in style and means.

The painting has been growing in me and I in it, we go hand in hand because it is an intimate language between my soul and me. I learn with her. I inhabit the realm of form to let speak deep emotions, my world mirrors the world outside-in. My pictorial motifs, the light of man, his fragility and greatness.

Masaccio | Early Renaissance painter

Masaccio, byname of Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassai, (born December 21, 1401, Castel San Giovanni - died autumn 1428, Rome), important Florentine painter of the early Renaissance whose frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence (c. 1427) remained influential throughout the Renaissance.

In the span of only six years, Masaccio radically transformed Florentine painting.

His art eventually helped create many of the major conceptual and stylistic foundations of Western painting.

Seldom has such a brief life been so important to the history of art.