Thomas Ehretsmann, 1974 | Narrative painter

French painter🎨 and illustrator Thomas Ehretsmann was born in Mulhouse, France.

He completed his studies at the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg in 1998 and has led a successful career in illustration for over a decade. Notably, his work has been featured in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Elle Magazine and various European and American books and journals.

In 2009, he spent several months in Norway studying with the internationally recognized painter, Odd Nerdrum🎨. He received a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators of New York in 2011, and a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators West in 2013.

His works have been exhibited at Gallery Brulee in Strasbourg and at Gallery l’Oeil du Prince in Paris.

Anna Razumovskaya | Romantic Figurative painter

Anna Razumovskaya /Анна Разумовская🎨 is a graduate of the Russian State University For Arts, where she was awarded🎨 the distinction of high-class artist in 1991. Subsequently, she studied art in Germany, Belgium and Holland.

With exhibitions in New York, Paris, Toronto, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Berlin and numerous works in private collections across the globe, she has become one of the most exciting and collectable artists on the contemporare scene.

Born at the height of the cold war, Anna was exposed to very different worlds, that of the austere communist regime alongside the sophistication and femininity of her fashion-conscious mother. She excelled at art school, and enjoyed the freedom of learning and perfecting her technique in a variety of different media.

Ulisse Caputo | Genre painter of the Belle Époque

Ulisse Caputo | An evening at the opera | Christie's

In the present painting "An evening at the opera" the viewer is placed directly in the stalls of the theatre, taking in the movement of the orchestra, the drama at the centre-stage, and the frisson of the swordfight in the upstage right, all under the backdrop of a clear crisp night sky.

The colourful scene is characterized by quick and rich brushstrokes, emphasising the movement of the depiction.

Music and theatre can be considered familiar passions as the artist’s father was a set designer and administrator of the Teatro Verdi in Salerno and this probably influenced the artist in his love for the subjects.

Ulisse Caputo | An evening at the opera | Christie's

Jakub Schikaneder | Impressionistic nocturnes

Jakub Schikaneder (1855-1924) came from the family of a German customs office clerk.

Despite the family's poor background, he was able to pursue his studies, thanks in part to his family's love of art; an ancestor was Urban Schikaneder, the elder brother of the librettist Emanuel Schikaneder.

After having completed his studies in Prague and Munich 1871-1879, Schikaneder, alongside Emanuel Krescenc Liška, was involved in the furnishing of the royal box in the National Theatre in Prague; however, this work was lost in a fire in 1881.

Émile Lecomte-Vernet | Orientalist painter

Émile Vernet-Lecomte, born Charles Émile Hippolyte Lecomte (1821-1900) was a French painter, best known for his Orientalist works.

He came from a family of illustrious painters.

His great-grandfather was Claude Joseph Vernet and his father was the battle painter, Hippolyte Lecomte; who was himself the son-in-law of Carle Vernet, and the nephew of Horace Vernet.

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) | Still Lifes

Odilon Redon🎨's work represent an exploration of his internal feelings and psyche.

He himself wanted to "place the visible at the service of the invisible"; thus, although his work seems filled with strange beings and grotesque dichotomies, his aim was to represent pictorially the ghosts of his own mind. Redon🎨 also describes his work as ambiguous and undefinable:

"My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined".

Odilon Redon | Symbolist / Colorist painter

Odilon Redon (born April 20, 1840, Bordeaux, France - died July 6, 1916, Paris) French Symbolist painter, lithographer and etcher of considerable poetic sensitivity and imagination, whose work developed along two divergent lines.

His prints explore haunted, fantastic, often macabre themes and foreshadowed the Surrealist and Dadaist movements.

Kay Boyce | Figurative painter

British painter and illustrator Kay Boyce was born in Sheffield.

As a child she would often spend hours at a time drawing on rolls of wallpaper; this was the beginning of her passion for art.

Kay studied illustration at Wrexham College before working as a freelance illustrator. She produced editorial work for Women s Weekly, Bella, My Weekly, Sunday Express and Woman's Own.

Her illustration work has carried her through to major book publishers such as Hodder and Staughton, Wadsworth Romantics, Mills and Boon and Mandarin.