Emilio Giunchi - Zenone, 1936 | Naif painter

Zenone - Emilio Giunchi - Naive painter well known in Italy and abroad, was born in Arezzo (Italy) and is known in the art as Zenone.

The artist explains the reason for the name:

"In art I chose this name because it links me to an important memory, in fact celebrated Zenone is the holy day in which I performed my first painting".

Bruno Mondot, 1964 | Surrealist / Trompe l’oeil painter

Born in France, Bruno Mondot has won numerous prestigious acknowledgments and awards*. His work is collected worldwide and may be found in distinguished collections both public and private.

The work of Bruno Mondot is both fascinating and titillating in its effect.

This highly skilled and technically proficient artist creates a deep and refined allegory of amusements.

With artistic and mythical references embedded within his canvases, Mondot contrives and reveals alter dimensional realities.

Paul Sérusier | Pittore post-impressionista

Paul Sérusier (Parigi, 9 novembre 1864 - Morlaix, 7 ottobre 1927) è stato un pittore francese post-impressionista, associato al movimento dei Nabis.

Nacque da una famiglia benestante di ceto medio e suo padre, un uomo d'affari che lavorava nell'industria del profumo, si assicurò che ricevesse un'educazione classica. Nel 1875, Sérusier fu ammesso al liceo Condorcet dove studiò filosofia classica, greco, latino e scienze. Ricevette i suoi due diplomi nel 1883, di filosofia e di scienze.

Nel 1885, dopo aver lavorato per un breve periodo nella società di un amico del padre, entrò alla prestigiosa Académie Julian per studiare arte.

Di carattere gentile, simpatico, fece subito amicizia sia con gli studenti sia con i professori.

La sua amicizia con Maurice Denis data da quest'epoca. Il primo successo giunse nel 1888 con Le Tisserand (Il Tessitore) ispirato al naturalismo fotografico e per questa opera ricevette una menzione al Salon des Indépendants.

David Adickes, 1927 | Figurative sculptor /painter

Born in Huntsville, Texas, David Adickes earned his undergraduate degree in physics and mathematics from Sam Houston State College (now University).

The summer after graduation, he attended the Kansas City Art Institute and realized that art was what he really wanted to do.

Adickes used his G.I. Bill to study painting in Paris with modern master, Fernand Leger.

He returned to Houston and began painting full-time.

Toshio Ebine / 海老根俊雄, 1978 | Romantic Fantasy painter

Toshio Ebine** / 海老根俊雄 is an Japanese artist** based in the Kanagawa Prefecture.

Started painting when he was 20.

His main medium is a gouache-watercolor mix, works, soft colors, full of romantic fantasy.

His work combines childlike wonder with the vastness of the universe in a calming aesthetic, that’s unique and beautiful.

Benvenuto Cellini | Baroque / Mannerist sculptor

Benvenuto Cellini, (born Nov. 1, 1500, Florence-died Feb. 13, 1571, Florence), Florentine sculptor, goldsmith, and writer, one of the most important Mannerist artists and, because of the lively account of himself and his period in his autobiography, one of the most picturesque figures of the Renaissance.

Early career

Cellini, resisting the efforts of his father to train him as a musician, was apprenticed as a metalworker in the studio of the Florentine goldsmith Andrea di Sandro Marcone. Banished to Siena as a result of a brawl in 1516, he returned to Florence during 1517-19 and then moved to Rome.

Prosecuted for fighting in Florence in 1523 and condemned to death, he fled again to Rome, where he worked for the bishop of Salamanca, Sigismondo Chigi, and Pope Clement VII.

Hatshepsut | The first woman Pharoah / La prima donna Faraone

Hatshepsut (Hat-shep-soot) (1507–1458 BCE), the first important female ruler known to history, lived a thousand years after the pyramids were built and seventeen centuries after the Egyptians had begun writing their language in hieroglyphs.

She ruled Egypt for two decades (ca. 1473-1458 B.C.) during Egypt's Dynasty 18. Although less familiar to modern audiences than her much later successor, the notorious Cleopatra (51–30 B.C.), Hatshepsut's achievements were far more significant.

Ruling first as regent for, then as co-ruler with, her nephew Thutmose III (who ruled for another thirty-three years after her death), Hatshepsut enjoyed a relatively peaceful reign, at the beginning of the New Kingdom.

Howard Rogers, 1932 | Sculptures

Howard Rogers began his fine art career as a highly successful illustrator on the East Coast, working on projects for national magazines and book publishers. He eventually moved west to paint full time, greatly inspired by the landscapes and cowboy lifestyle.

Today, he is nationally recognized for his western paintings, although his subjects include figuratives, florals and wildlife.

He is also highly sought after for his lyrical figurative bronzes.

Ana Mutavdzic | Abstract Cityscape painter

Ana Mutavdzic is an Serbian painter, known for working in the Abstract style*.

Mutavdzic was born in Kragujevac, Serbia - Yugoslavia.

I am driven by the feeling that with my brush I can convey my own understanding of the world to the canvas, the colours of my soul, my feelings and the way of life. It's one of the things which make me paint all over again.

Istvan Sàndorfi | Drawing

István Sándorfi was born in Budapest in 1948 and died in 2007. His father was director of the American company, IBM, in Hungary.

Because of this association he served five years in Stalinist prisons during the Communist regime and his family was deported to an isolated Hungarian village.

At the time of the 1956 uprising the Sandorfi family fled the country and became expatriates, first in Germany, then in France.

Greatly affected by the violence of the revolution and by the aberration of political systems in general, Istvan took refuge in drawing, and then, at the age of 12, in oil painting.

Jorge Luis Borges | A Poem to Friends | L'Amicizia

Pablo Picasso* - Friendship, 1908

I cannot give you solutions to all life’s problems,

Nor do I have answers to your doubts or fears

But I can listen to you and share it with you

I cannot change neither your past nor your future.

But when you need me I’ll be by your side.

I cannot prevent you from stumbling

I can only offer you my hand to hold on to you so you won’t fall.

Anita Magsaysay-Ho | Cubist painter

Anita Magsaysay-Ho (May 25, 1914 - May 5, 2012) was a Filipino painter. She was the only female member of the Thirteen Moderns, a standing group of Filipino modernist artists and in 1958 was chosen by a panel of experts at the six major painters of the country. The most famous work of Magsaysay-Ho are subject to the beauty of Filipino women dealing with everyday issues.

Vally Nomidou / Βαλλυ Νομιδου, 1959 | Figurative sculptor

G reek artist* Vally Nomidou / Βαλλυ Νομιδου was born in Thessaloniki. She graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts, and of the Saint Martin’s School of Art of London.

Recipient of scholarship for the Greek graduate program of IKY.

Vally Nomidou makes life-size sculptures of human figures using only paper and cardboard.

The construction of her paper sculptures is a labour of layering newspaper, paper towel, and other recycled papers by cutting, sewing and rubbing to produce beautiful forms.

Jesus Navarro, 1952 | Hyperrealist painter

Jesús Navarro was born in Jerez, Cadiz, located in southern Spain.

By the age of twelve his artistic talents led him to the local school of arts and crafts -Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Jerez- where he studied painting and sculpture.

At this time He also became the apprentice of locally renowned painter, Ramírez Toro, under which Navarro learned the complex techniques of classical painting.

In 1971, Navarro moved to Barcelona where he began a phase of self-teaching, focusing on combining classical techniques along with his newly discovered self interests in detailed formation of compositions.

George Grie / Джордж Грие, 1962 | Neo-Surrealist painter

George Grie / Джордж Грие or Юрий Грибановский is a Russian-Canadian artist.

One of the first digital surrealism artists, Grie is known for numerous 3D, 2D, and matte painting images. Born in the USSR during the Soviet regime he did not adopt the conventional and politically correct socialist realism art style.

• Style

Grie's artistic style has been heavily influenced by famous surrealists such as René Magritte and Salvador Dalí, fantastic realists Zdzisław Beksiński and Wojciech Siudmak, and surreal photomanipulation artist Jerry Uelsmann. His neo-surrealist artwork is a combination of classic surrealist symbolism with modern fantasy, gothic and visionary arttendencies.

Arthur Frank Mathews | Tonalist painter

Arthur F. Mathews (1860-1945) was an American* Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement*.

Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a significant effect on the evolution of Californian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

His students include Granville Redmond, Xavier Martinez, Armin Hansen, Percy Gray, Gottardo Piazzoni, Ralph Stackpole, Mary Colter, Maynard Dixon, Rinaldo Cuneo and Francis McComas.

Pablo Neruda / Duy Huynh | Ode to the Happy Day / Ode al giorno felice

Let me be happy

nothing ha s happened to anybody

I am nowhere special

I am only

happy

through the four chambers

of my heart, I am strolling,

sleeping, or writing.

What canI do? I'm

happy.

Victoria Montesinos, 1944 | Flowers painter

Victoria Montesinos, Mexican painter, was born in Mexico City and has been exhibiting works since 1972 in the U.S., Europe, Mexico and Japan.

In late 1983, Victoria moved from Mexico to New York where she had a contract with one of the largest galleries in the United States to develop lithographic works.

While there, she studied and worked with a complicated technique to produce high-quality lithographs.

Giotto | The allegories of Virtues / Le allegorie delle Virtù, 1303-1305

The bottom tiers of the longer walls feature 14 allegories, in monochrome, symbolising Vices on the North wall and Virtues on the South wall.

The Vices are: Stultitia, Inconstantia, Ira, Iniusticia, Infidelitas, Invidia, Desperatio.

The Virtues are divided as follows: the four Cardinal Virtues: Prudentia, Iustitia, Temperantia, Fortitudo, followed by the three Theological ones: Fides, Karitas, Spes.

Each virtue and vice is embedded within a mirror-like marble frame.

The name of the vice or the virtue is written in Latin on top of each figure, indicating what these figures represent: the seventh day (the day between Jesus’s birth and the Final Judgement).

Temperanza e L'Ira

Paul Verlaine | Kiss! / Bacio! Rosa malva nel giardino delle carezze..

Kiss! Hollyhock in Love's luxuriant close!

Brisk music played on pearly little keys,

In tempo with the witching melodies

Love in the ardent heart repeating goes.

Sonorous, graceful Kiss, hail! Kiss divine!

Unequalled boon, unutterable bliss!

Man, bent o'er thine enthralling chalice, Kiss,

Grows drunken with a rapture only thine!

Jaroslav Seifert / George Grie | To be a Poet / Essere Poeta, 1983

To Be a Poet

Life taught me long ago

that music and poetry

are the most beautiful things on earth

that life can give us.

Except for love, of course.

Tomek Setowski, 1961: "Mind is a characteristic factory of dreams"..

Polish painter Tomek Sętowski was born in Czestochowa, where he is still residing and where his main gallery called Museum of imagination is located.

Extraordinary sensitivity that characterized him as a little boy could be seen as soon as he was only three years old when his first painting was created.

Had been developing his painting techniques for years, taking giant steps from local galleries to the top-rank exhibitions salons, and, at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Częstochowa Pedagogical University he gained knowledge of the history of art.

Kenneth Potter | Watercolor painter

American painter Kenneth Potter [1926-2011] was born in Bakersfield, CA.

Studied: San Francisco Academy of Art, Academie Frochot (Paris), Istituto Statale d'Arte (Florence); Member: Society of Western Artists; American Watercolor Society. Ken Potter is a third generation Californian.

He grew up in Northern California during the depression and began drawing regularly at an early age.

While living in Sacramento, he received art instruction through a W.P.A. sponsored program. As a teenager, he visited the 1939 World’s Fair art exhibit in San Francisco where he viewed works by many of the world’s greatest artists. He was particularly excited about modern works, especially the French modernists.

Gianni Bellini, 1965 | Figurative Mixed media painter

Gianni Bellini, italian painter, was born in Carmignano, Italy.

A self taught and talented painter, at just fifteen years of age, he started to partecipate in important extemporary, personal and collective art exhibitions in several cities always receiving wonderful reviews and many first place awards.

Marco Rossati, 1943 | Metaphysical Realism painter

Marco Rossati was born at Reggio Emilia (Italy) in 1943.

He studied at the "Istituto d’Arte" and at the "Accademia di Belle Arti" in Rome with Mino Maccari, Renato Guttuso, Franco Gentilini, Ferdinando Bologna.

He later taught at the same Academy.

In that time he met Giorgio De Chirico, whose art fascinated him since he was a child and becomes his pupil for several years.

Giuseppe Signorini | Orientalist painter

Giuseppe Signorini (1857-1932) was an Italian painter*, mainly of orientalist subjects.

He was born in Rome. He studied at the Accademia di San Luca, and then worked under Aurelio Tiratelli. He often traveled to the Paris Salon exhibitions, and was influenced by the styles and orientalist themes expressed by painters like Mariano Fortuny, Ernest Meissonier and Gérôme*.

Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer | Genre / Impressionist painter

Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer (23 October 1839, The Hague - 4 April 1902, Paris) was a Dutch painter*. He originally worked in the Romantic and Academic styles, but later became an Impressionist*.

He began his artistic studies at the Royal Academy of Art with Salomon Verveer, who taught in the Romantic tradition. His early works were mostly landscapes in the style of the Hague School. His first solo exhibition was in 1861 in Rotterdam.

In 1865, attracted by new trends in art, he went to Paris and enrolled at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, where he studied with Jean-Léon Gérôme* and switched to a more Academic style.

Ettore Aldo Del Vigo, 1952 | Surrealist painter

Ettore Aldo Del Vigo was born in Basel in Switzerland. After graduating in Fine Arts, he worked in a print shop specializing in art books and catalogs, where others could learn from a parent of Surrealism, Max Ernst.

Certainly the most obvious influences in his paintings are classical antiquity and Salvador Dalí.

He later moved to Sardinia where he joined a group of local artists, participating in numerous art competitions. In 1979 states individually.

John White Alexander | Symbolist painter

John White Alexander (1856-1915) was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. He was orphaned at age five and taken in by relatives of limited means. When Alexander left school and began working at a telegraph company, the company's vice-president, former civil war Colonel Edward Jay Allen, took an interest in his welfare.

Allen became his legal guardian, brought him into the Allen household, and saw that he finished Pittsburgh High School.

At eighteen, he moved to New York City and was hired by Harper and Brothers as an office boy in the art department.

He was soon promoted to apprentice illustrator under staff artists such as Edwin A. Abbey and Charles Reinhart.

During his time at Harpers, Alexander was sent out on assignment to illustrate events such as the Philadelphia Centennial celebration in 1876 and the Pittsburgh Railroad Strike in 1877, which erupted in violence.

Daniel F. Gerhartz, 1965 | Ladies and flowers

The Daniel F. Gerhartz’s skillful and technically adept work celebrates the created world, the human form, personal relationships with a connection to landscapes and environments of special importance.

Many of his figures are dressed in dramatic clothing which he often invents for its aesthetic appeal and lyrical quality so as to achieve a sense of other worldliness..

His subjects evoke a timelessness and idealism, yet for the most part Dan has drawn upon his home and community, including family and friends, for subject matter.

Gustave Jean Jacquet | A pupil of Bouguereau

Gustave Jean Jacquet was French painter of portraits, genre and watercolours.

Born in Paris on 25 May 1846 Jacquet lived and worked in Paris. Jacquet was a pupil of Bouguereau and so admiring was he of his tutor that he never sought any other.

Consequently, Jacquet's early work was influenced by that of Bouguereau.

In 1865, Jacquet made his debut at the Salon with an allegory entitled La Rêverie. The following year he submitted paintings detailing life in the 16th, 17th and 18th Century which were small in dimension.

At the same time he began to paint portraits and he sometimes put his subjects in the period costume of the 16th Century as a caprice. Jacquet also painted portraits of children and genre scenes.

In 1875 Jacquet was awarded a medal of excellence and was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1879.

Jacquet's artistic career was very successful and he produced many fine paintings which won him his acclaim.

Daniel F. Gerhartz, 1965

Daniel F. Gerhartz was born in Wisconsin where he now lives with his wife Jennifer and their three young children.

His interest in art piqued at an early age when a teenage friend suggested they spend one dreary afternoon drawing.

It was at that moment that he discovered his lifework.

Daniel began his art education at the American Academy of Art in Chicago where he studied in the classical tradition and immersed himself in applications of technique and design.

Juan Gonzalez Alacreu, 1937 | Impressionist /Genre painter

Juan Gonzales Alacreu* is a Spanish painter*, known for working in the Figurative style.

Juan González Alacreu was born in Burriana, Castellón, Spain.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Juan Gonzales Alacreu see:

• Juan Gonzalez Alacreu, 1937 | Impressionist painter ➻

Louis Marie De Schryver | Romantic painter

Louis-Marie de Schryver (1862-1942) was born in Paris, the son of a well-known journalist.

Precociously talented, he exhibited his first works at the Salon, two flower paintings, in 1876 at the age of thirteen. 

The following year he studied briefly with the still life and genre painter Philippe Rousseau.

In 1880 he won a bronze medal at the Sydney World Fair with Lilas.

Wladyslaw Czachórski | Academic / Genre painter

Władysław Maurycy Czachórski (22 September 1850 in Lublin - 13 January 1911 in Munich) was a Polish painter in the Academic style.

In 1866 Czachorski attended the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw and had Rafał Hadziewicz as a teacher. He then spent one year at the Dresden Academy, and from there went to the Munich Academy (1869-1873) others who studied there at the same time included: Hermann Anschütz, Karl von Piloty, and Alexander Wagner.

Alda Merini / Marc Chagall | I do not need money / Io non ho bisogno di denaro..

I do not need money.

I have need of feelings

of words, words chosen wisely

of flowers called thoughts,

of roses called presences

of dreams inhabiting the trees,

of songs that make statues dance,

of stars that murmur to the ear of lovers.

I need poetry

this spell which burns the weight of words

that arouses emotions and gives new colors.

Alda Merini* (Milan, 21 March 1931 – Milan, 1 November 2009) Italian* writer and poet.

Robert Auer | Art Nouveau painter

Schooled at the academy in Vienna and Munich at the time when the Art Nouveau🎨 wave swept across Europe and greatly influenced the European cultural centres, Robert Auer [1873-1952]🎨 is often tied to this particular artistic style.

He gained popularity as a portraitist of the upper city class, having painted more than 150 portraits, and just as many figures and symbolic compositions.

Andrey Shishkin, 1960 | Academic painter

Russian artist Andrey Shishkin / Андрей Алексеевич Шишкин was born in Moscow and hasn’t received any art education but he was self-taught.

Here he lives and works in his own studio to this day.

Andrey has been an Artist for more than 15 years.

Andrey Shishkin works in the genre of a realistic academic painting and creates psychological portraits, that amaze by their magnificence.

龐卡 Pang Ka Karl Bang, 1935 | Visionary painter

龐卡 Pang Ka (Karl Bang) was born in Bong Ka, Shanghai. He was formally trained by the master artists of Chinese painting and he also formally trained in the European painting tradition in France and Belgium.

These multiple styles led to Karl Bang's multi-cultural blending of the traditional Chinese artistic discipline with the more personally expressive European style, and later also included traditions from around the entire globe.

Carne Griffiths, 1973 | Abstract | Portrait painter

Carne Griffiths* is an British illustrator* known for working in the Abstract style*.

Griffiths creates amazing portraits of individuals and combined with fantasy elements with uncommon mediums, notably materials such as wisky, tea, and brandy.

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

• Carne Griffiths, 1973 | Abstract Portrait painter ➦