Bartolomeo Giuliano | Genre painter

Bartolomeo Giuliano (1825-1909) was an Italian painter.

Giuliano studied at the Albertina Academy in Turin and began presenting works on historical and literary subjects at the local Promotrice exhibitions in 1846.

He was appointed assistant professor of figure drawing in Turin alongside Enrico Gamba in 1855 and then held the same position with Raffaele Casnédi in Milan, where he moved in 1860.

Désiré François Laugée | Naturalist / Genre painter

Désiré François Laugée (1823-1896) was a French painter. His work included portraits and classical religious or historical scenes.

His large murals still decorate several churches in Paris. He also made naturalist landscapes and genre paintings of peasants, particularly in his later life.

With this work he may be seen as a precursor of the Barbizon school. He achieved great success during his lifetime, although his work has since been largely ignored.

Nazim Hikmet | Sotto la pioggia camminava la primavera..

Sotto la pioggia camminava la primavera

con i suoi piedi esili e lunghi sull'asfalto di Mosca

chiusa tra gli pneumatici i motori le stoffe le pelli

il mio cardiogramma era pessimo quel giorno

quel che si attende verrà in un'ora inattesa

verrà tutto da solo

senza condurre con sè

coloro che già partirono

suonavano il primo concerto di Čajkovskij sotto la pioggia

Hamish Allan | Surrealist Landscape painter

Hamish Allan is a Christchurch artist working mainly with the New Zealand landscape as subject matter.

Having completed two health-related degrees, Hamish worked as a physiotherapist before embarking on his artistic career in 1999 - initially concentrating on sculpture, then moving his attention to painting.

Hamish’s style is characterized by clean precise imagery, depicting stylised representational New Zealand landscapes and incorporating distinctive architecture.

Jack Vettriano, 1951 | Love Story

Jack Vettriano was born in Fife, Scotland. After leaving school at 15, he followed his father down the mine, working as an apprentice engineer. He later moved on to white-collar jobs in management services.

Vettriano took up painting as a hobby in the 1970s when a girlfriend bought him a set of watercolours for his birthday and from then on, he spent much of his spare time teaching himself to paint.

He learned his craft by copying Old Masters, Impressionists, Surrealists and a plethora of Scottish artists.