Alex Venezia, 1993 | Figurative painter

Alex Venezia was born Virginia Beach, Virginia; currently lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Primarily a self taught painter, Alex Venezia, first became aware of the transcendent power of art during a high-school art lesson on chiaroscuro while examining the works of Caravaggio. This class marked a unique turning point for the young student as he began to consider a vocation in the arts.

Searching for new art experiences he frequented the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia where he was able to fill his eyes with the works of the Masters and make copies.

Venezia has sought out and studied classical technique with many of todays top representational painters including: Colleen Barry, Daniel Sprick, Michael Klein and Jeff Hein.

Alda Merini: "Il mio primo trafugamento di madre.."

Il mio primo trafugamento di madre

avvenne in una notte d'estate

quando un pazzo mi prese

mi adagiò sopra l'erba

e mi fece concepire un figlio.

Alex Venezia

Sigmund Freud: Omosessualità? "Nulla di cui vergognarsi!", 1935

Il 9 aprile del 1935, Sigmund Freud (Neurologo, psicoanalista e filosofo Austriaco, 1856-1939) scrisse una lettera di risposta ad una madre che gli aveva chiesto aiuto per il figlio gay.

Cara signora,

deduco dalla sua lettera che suo figlio è omosessuale.

Sono molto colpito dal fatto che non usi mai questo termine nel darmi le informazioni su di lui. Posso chiedere perché lo evita?

L’omosessualità non è certo un vantaggio, ma non c'è nulla di cui vergognarsi, non è un vizio, non è degradante; non può essere classificata come una malattia; riteniamo che sia una variazione della funzione sessuale, prodotta da un arresto dello sviluppo sessuale.

Molti individui altamente rispettabili di tempi antichi e moderni erano omosessuali, tra di loro c’erano grandi uomini. (Platone, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, ecc).

Jean Metzinger | Woman with a Mirror, 1916

Femme au miroir / Woman with a Mirror / Femme à sa toilette or Lady at her Dressing Table, is a painting by the French artist Jean Metzinger.

This distilled synthetic form of Cubism exemplifies Metzinger's continued interest, in 1916, towards less surface activity, with a strong emphasis on larger, flatter, overlapping abstract planes.

The manifest primacy of the underlying geometric configuration, rooted in the abstract, controls nearly every element of the composition.

David Ligare, 1945 | Post-Modern / Neo-Classic painter

American Post-modern fine artist David Ligare paints in a neo-classical mode using narrative and mythology in a historically informed body of work.

Since 1978, he has focused on painting still lifes, landscapes, and figures that are informed by Greco-Roman antiquity.

Chief among his stated influences are the aesthetic and philosophical theories of the Greek sculptor Polykleitos and the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, as well as the work of the 18th-century classical painter Nicholas Poussin.

A resident of Salinas, California, his paintings often depict the terrain of the central Californian coast in the background.

Costantino Di Renzo, 1946

Born in Chieti, Italian painter Costantino Di Renzo was predominantly inspired by the 1960s.

Art turned into a vehicle for ideologies and other agendas, with Pop and Minimalism appearing simultaneously as the most defining art movements of the decade.

Pop Art in New York city embraced the culture of mass media and mass consumerism, with Artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann getting stimulated by television, comic strips, billboards and other products of the rise of Capitalism for their artworks.

James Hayllar (1829-1920) | Genre painter

From Christie's:

Artistic dynasties were not unusual in Victorian England, but few attained the distinction of the Hayllars, where five members of the family exhibited at the Royal Academy towards the end of the century. In addition to producing a son who was an engraver, James produced four remarkable daughters, each of whom he taught.

James Hayllar was born in Chichester in 1829, and after overcoming family opposition enrolled at Cary's Art School in 1842. Francis Cary was a respected historical painter who later took over Sass's Academy in Bloomsbury. He is now principally remembered as tutor to Rossetti and Millais.

On completing his studies, Hayllar made a tour of the continent, where he encountered Leighton in Rome in in 1851.

His likeness can be seen in Leighton's first great canvas, Cimabue's Madonna carried through the streets of Florence, which was purchased by Queen Victoria, and is now in the Royal Collection, though on loan to the National Gallery.

Anthony Hinchliffe | Figurative painter

"I have always loved the sense of escapism that comes with creating artwork.

I am passionate about exploring my creativity, constantly looking at developing my techniques so I can keep that feeling of energy within my work.

When someone is emotionally moved by looking at my artwork that is a big motivation for me as I have always liked to please people through my painting.

My preferred medium is oil paint, I do sometimes create an acrylic underpainting first as I really like the way the oil paint behaves when applied over acrylic.

I often dilute the oil paint down with turpentine in the initial stages and use it like watercolour".

Olga Naletova, 1966 | Surrealist painter

Ольга Налётова was born in St.Petersburg.

Finished Ioganson’s Art College at the USSR Academy of Arts.

In 1990 graduated from I.E.Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture at the USSR Academy of Arts.

Faculty of Painting. Neprintsev’s Studio.

Member of the Union of Artists of St.Petersburg from 1992. Member of the Union of Artists of Moscow Lives and works in Moscow.

Tishk Barzanji | Modern Surrealist /Symbolist painter

Kurdish-British artist Tishk Barzanji is a visual artist based in London, United Kingdom. His work touches on the modernism and surrealism movement.

His process is about space, colour, deconstruction, breaking boundaries, understanding the living space in this fast-moving world, and human interactions within these spaces.

Inspired by his childhood in Kurdistan, and early adult years in London, where he moved in 1997.

The first few years in London were an eye-opener, where his passion for architecture and art began. Surrounded by the rich cultures of London and this new environment, shaped his ideas.

He later went on to study Fine Art at Richmond upon Thames College, and Physics at Loughborough University.

Since 2017, he has worked with Rockefeller, New York Times, V and A museum, Somerset house, NET-A-PORTER, Gucci, and most recently featured in British Vogue.

Hans Baluschek (1870-1935) | Vita ed Opere

Hans Baluschek è stato un rappresentante di spicco del Realismo Sociale Tedesco, ed in quanto tale, cercò di ritrarre la vita della gente comune con vivida schiettezza.

I suoi dipinti si incentrarono sulla classe operaia di Berlino.

Appartenne al movimento della Secessione di Berlino, un gruppo di artisti particolarmente interessati agli sviluppi avanguardistici dell'arte - in particolare dell'Espressionismo Tedesco.

Nonostante ciò, lungo l'arco della sua vita egli fu conosciuto principalmente per le sue fantasiose illustrazioni del famoso libro per bambini "Peterchens Mondfahrt".

Dopo il 1920 divenne un membro attivo del Partito Socialdemocratico tedesco, che all'epoca professava ancora una visione marxista della storia.

Salon des Refusés (May 15, 1863)

Salon des Refusés is generally known as an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.

Today by extension, salon des refusés refers to any exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show.

Among the exhibitors were Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Armand Guillaumin, Johan Jongkind, Henri Fantin-Latour, James Whistler and Édouard Manet, who exhibited his famous painting "Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe", officially regarded as a scandalous affront to taste.

Édouard Manet | Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Oskar Zwintscher | Art Nouveau painter

Oskar Zwintscher (1870-1916) was a German painter. He is often associated with the Jugendstil movement.

From 1887-1890 he studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig and, from 1890-1892 was a student of Leon Pohle and Ferdinand Pauwels at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.

After his studies, he became a free-lance painter in Meißen, where he received a stipendium, awarded to Saxon painters by the "Munkeltsche Legat". This enabled him to work for three years with no financial worries.

In 1898, he presented his first large collection of paintings to the public.

That same year, he was a prizewinner at a contest held by the entrepreneur Ludwig Stollwerck to select artists for a new line of trading cards.