William Faulkner: "I believe that man will not merely endure he will prevail!"

William Faulkner’s speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm

December 10, 1950

Ladies and gentlemen,

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.

So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin.

Antonio Nunziante

Emily Dickinson | Marzo: Mese di attesa / March: Month of expectation, 1877

Marzo: mese di attesa.

Le cose che ignoriamo -

E le persone del nostro presagio

Sono in cammino -

Ci sforziamo di fingere fermezza -

Come si deve, ma la gioia solenne

Claude Monet | Strada Romana at Bordighera | Museum Barberini

Tamara de Lempicka | Russian Dancer, 1924

Russian Dancer was created in 1924 by Tamara de Lempicka (Polish Art Déco painter, 1894-1980).

The painting is part of the Collection of Polish businessman and art collector Marek Roefler/ Villa la Fleur, Konstancin-Jeziorna, Poland.

Russian Dancer, posthumously titled in reference to the Ballets Russes - the troupe founded by Serge Diaghilev, which took Paris by storm in the 1910s and 1920s with its innovative choreography and gleaming costumes and sets designed by Russian artists-portrays a woman dressed in folk attire from southern Russia.

Tamara de Lempicka | Russian Dancer, 1924

Charles Baudelaire | Inno alla bellezza / Hymn to Beauty

Vieni dal cielo profondo o esci dall’abisso,

Bellezza? Il tuo sguardo, divino e infernale,

dispensa alla rinfusa il sollievo e il crimine,

ed in questo puoi essere paragonata al vino.

Daniel Gerhartz | Green velvet

Trish Biddle | Art Déco painter

American artist Trish Biddle studied at the Dallas Institute of Art, before beginning her career as an illustrator and textile designer.

Trish Biddle is published internationally, and is collected around the world.

Her process of drawing, painting and designing eventually melded onto canvases, creating romantic images and her unmistakable Art Déco figurative paintings.

Cecilia Beaux | Sita and Sarita, 1894

This portrait by Cecilia Beaux (American Impressionist painter and portraitist, 1855-1942) portrays the artist's cousin, Sarah Allibone Leavitt, dressed in white with her black cat on her shoulder.

Beaux was recognized not only for her bold painting technique, but also for her ability to imbue her female subjects with wit and intelligence, rendering them more than just mere objects of beauty.

A student in Paris in the late 1880s, the artist was influenced by her firsthand exposure to French impressionism.

Her light-filled palette and gestural style invite comparisons with many of her contemporaries, including William Merritt Chase, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt.

Cecilia Beaux | Sita and Sarita, 1894 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Charles Warren Mundy, 1945 | Impressionist painter

Charles Warren Mundy is an American impressionist painter, born in Indianapolis, Indiana.

His works has been displayed in the Indiana state Museum, The University of Louisville Hall of Fame, Indianapolis 500, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Joseph Stella | America's first Futurist

Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, 1877-1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge.

He is also associated with the American Precisionist movement of the 1910s–1940s.

Early life and education

Battle of Lights, Coney Island, Mardi Gras, a 1914 portrait of Coney Island by Stella now on display at Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut Stella was born to a middle-class family in Italy, in Muro Lucano, a village in the province of Potenza.

His grandfather Antonio and his father Michele were attorneys, but he came to New York City in 1896 to study medicine, following in the footsteps of his older brother Doctor Antonio Stella.

Norman Rockwell | Picasso vs. Sargent, 1966

Picasso vs. Sargent was created in 1966 by Norman Rockwell (American painter and illustrator, 1894-1978) for the January 11, 1966 edition of the LOOK magazine.

It is part of the collection of the National Museum of American Illustration.

Norman Rockwell left the Saturday Evening Post in 1963 and his paintings took a more political turn.

He spent the last decade of his life creating works that dealt with issues such as civil rights and the fight against poverty.

From 1964 Rockwell went on to create work for LOOK Magazine.

Norman Rockwell | Picasso vs. Sargent, 1966 | National Museum of American Illustration

Joseph Christian Leyendecker | Art Nouveau illustrator

German-American illustrator Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951) was one of the most prominent and financially successful freelance commercial artists in the U.S.

He was active between 1895 and 1951 producing drawings and paintings for hundreds of posters, books, advertisements, and magazine covers and stories.

He is best known for his 80 covers for Collier's Weekly, 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, and advertising illustrations for B. Kuppenheimer men's clothing and Arrow brand shirts and detachable collars.

He was one of the few known reportedly gay artists working in the early-twentieth century U.S.

Janice Darr Cua | Ladies and horses

Whether exercising her powers to capture the spirit of Arabians, the romance of the Renaissance, classic sensuality of femininity, or the universal bond between mother and child, Janice Darr Cua delivers striking depth and passion.

Paintings that radiate a glow that mesmerizes the viewer, a comforting warmth which evokes the passion within all.

Her work can be seen in select galleries around the world, with over thirty sell-out shows abroad as well as dozens of American exhibitions.

Cua is a sure stock, an intelligent investment as her popularity, technique, and price point increases in favor.

Eastman Johnson | Co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Eastman Johnson (1824-1906) was an American painter and Co-Founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, with his name inscribed at its entrance.

Best known for his Genre paintings, paintings of scenes from everyday life, and his portraits both of everyday people, he also painted portraits of prominent Americans such as Abraham Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

His later works often show the influence of the 17th-century Dutch masters whom he studied while living in The Hague, and he was even known as The American Rembrandt in his day.

Guy Hoff (1889-1962)

Born in Rochester, New York and trained at the Art School of the Albright Gallery in Buffalo and the Art Students League in New York City, Guy Hoff (1889-1962) is known for his cover pages for The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's and Ladies Home, among others, which often star young, beautiful women.

Guy Hoff is among the American painters who also used their talent to design illustrations for books, magazines and newspapers during the so-called 'Golden Age of American Illustration'.

David Tutwiler, 1952 | American Railroad Art

Renowned for his firsthand knowledge of Trains and Railroads, David Tutwiler is considered to be one of the leading experts of Railroad Art in the United States today.

His artistic technique, coupled with his eye for accuracy and attention to detail, result in paintings that evoke the warmth and timelessness of his subjects.

David’s commission clients have included MBNA Bank, the Pepsi-Cola Company, National Geographic, the Hamilton Plate Collection and the National Railway Historical Society.

Marlène Dietrich and Édith Piaf

"My Friend Édith Piaf" by Marlène Dietrich

From the autobiographical book Marlène D., 1984

"In my eyes, she really was the sparrow, the little bird whose name she bore.

But she was also Jezebel, whose unquenchable thirst for love must have been due to a feeling of imperfection, her 'ugliness', as she put it -- her delicate, scrawny body, which she sent forth into battle like Circe, the Sirens and Lorelei, the temptress who with her incomparable vitality promised all the pleasures of the world".

Marlene Dietrich ed Édith Piaf, 1952

Hayley Lever | Impressionist painter

Richard Hayley Lever (1876-1958) was an Australian-American painter, etcher, lecturer and art teacher.

His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Richard Hayley Lever was born and brought up in Adelaide, Australia.

He trained as an artist there under the guidance of James Ashton, an English born seascape artist whose son he was later to befriend in St Ives. In 1894 he set sail to Europe to finish his art studies.

Whilst in Paris he studied the human figure under Rene-Francois-Xavier Prinet but showed a natural inclination for open-air subjects and marine pictures.

Anaïs Nin: "L'amore non muore mai di morte naturale"..

L'amore non muore mai di morte naturale.

Muore perché noi non sappiamo come rifornire la sua sorgente.

Muore di cecità e di errori e tradimenti.

Muore di malattia e di ferite,

muore di stanchezza, per logorio o per opacità.

Vladimir Kush

Masterpieces of the Musée d’Orsay

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876

This painting is doubtless Renoir's most important work of the mid 1870's and was shown at the Impressionist exhibition in 1877.

Though some of his friends appear in the picture, Renoir's main aim was to convey the vivacious and joyful atmosphere of this popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre.

The study of the moving crowd, bathed in natural and artificial light, is handled using vibrant, brightly coloured brushstrokes.

The somewhat blurred impression of the scene prompted negative reactions from contemporary critics.

This portrayal of popular Parisian life, with its innovative style and imposing format, a sign of Renoir's artistic ambition, is one of the masterpieces of early Impressionism. | © Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919) | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

8 Notable artworks at the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 63,000 artworks and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts.

The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship, and performing arts and is a leader in digital innovations.

One of the top comprehensive art museums in the nation, recognized for its award-winning Open Access program and free of charge to all, the Cleveland Museum of Art is located in the University Circle neighborhood.

John French Sloan | A woman's work, 1912 | Cleveland Museum of Art

Trained as a journalist, the young John French Sloan (1871-1951) explored social issues more vigorously than most of the painters of his time, portraying working-class urbanites engaged in ordinary activities.

He observed this particular scene through a rear window of his Manhattan apartment.

Perched on a narrow fire escape, a woman hangs fresh laundry to dry on clotheslines strung between tenements.

As evidenced by the painting, the labors of American women at the turn of the 1900s were most often confined to the domestic realm. | Source: © Cleveland Museum of Art

John French Sloan (American, 1871-1951) | A woman's work, 1912 | Cleveland Museum of Art

5 Masterpieces at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Woman with a Parasol in a Garden, 1875

In Woman with a Parasol in a Garden, Renoir’s language is wholly impressionistic: in a setting lacking a visible horizon, the flowers and shrubs are created with tiny dabs of colour, providing a constant interweaving of textures around the two small figures.

The woman, whose parasol shades her from the sun, stands close to the man as he leans down, perhaps to pick a flower, hinting at an intimate relationship.

Contrary to what one may think, this canvas was not painted in the countryside but in the garden of Renoir’s new studio in Montmartre.

His friend George Rivière recalled: "As soon as Renoir entered the house, he was charmed by the view of this garden, which looked like a beautiful abandoned park".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Woman with a Parasol in a Garden, 1875 | Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid