Francis Picabia (1879-1953)

From: MoMa - The Museum of Modern Art

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In 1922, Francis Picabia wrote, "If you want to have clean ideas, change them like shirts".

Throughout his audacious and inventive career, which spanned almost 50 years and encompassed painting, performance, poetry, publishing, and film, Picabia lived out that prescription.

Although he remains best known as a Dadaist, his work ranged from Impressionist painting to radical abstraction, from iconoclastic provocation to pseudo-classicism, and from photo-based painting to Art Informel.

He relished courting controversy, making regular engagements with the press a part of the construction of his artistic persona.

Jules-Alexis Muenier (1863-1942) | Genre painter

Jules-Alexis Muenier was a French painter🎨 and photographer.

In 1880, Jules-Alexis Muenier entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts where he studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme🎨, now considered one of the most important academic painters of his age.

In the latter half of that same decade Muenier began exhibiting his work, first at the Paris Salon🎨 with the painting "Le Bréviaire", which brought him much acclaim.

Gianni Strino, 1953 | Figurative / Realist painter

Italian painter🎨 Gianni Strino studied fine art at the acclaimed Naples Art Institute winning the medal for the best graduate artist in 1970. He taught art and art history until the demand for his work allowed him to become a full time artist.

In his striking portraits Strino not only captures the beauty of his sitters but also the reality of the everyday. He does not restrict his models to beautiful young women as many portraitists do.

Francesca Strino, 1979 | Figurative painter

Francesca Strino was born in Naples, Italy. Francesca Strino’s powerful paintings reflect the influence of her father, Maestro Gianni Strino🎨.

She graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli with specialisation in sculpture and portraiture.

She was a pupil of the great master G. Di Fiore. Her potential as an artist was soon recognised and she was invited to submit her work for an exhibition held in 2002 celebrating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli.

René Xavier Prinet | Impressionist / Genre painter

René François Xavier Prinet (1861-1946) was a French painter and illustrator who drew his subjects from middle-class society.

He was born to Henri Prinet, an Imperial Prosecutor in Vitry-le-François.

A promotion led to him being posted in Paris, where they lived in a home not far from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

His father painted as a hobby and was supportive of his desire to study art, having him seek the advice of Louis Charles Timbal, a well-known church painter and friend of the family.

René Xavier Prinet | The Kreutzer Sonata inspired by the story by Tolstoy

Pol Ledent, 1952 | Abstract painter

Belgian painter🎨 Pol Ledent, self-taught painter, was born in Wallonie, french speaking part of Belgium.

He came to painting in 1989. He started with watercolor but felt rapidly that oil painting would make him progress more efficient in his search for light.

After a few years, because he was disappointed by the fact that he didn't succeed in painting good watercolors, he went to work again.

Rabindranath Tagore / Pol Ledent | Flower quotes

"By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower".

"Strappando i suoi petali, non raccogli la bellezza del fiore".

"Il fiore si nasconde nell'erba, ma il vento sparge il suo profumo..."

Rabindranath Tagore / Dorian Florez

"Il Grande cammina con il Piccolo. Il mediocre si tiene a distanza... "

"The Great walks with the Small without fear. The Middling keep aloof... "

"Ogni bambino che nasce ci ricorda che Dio non è ancora stanco degli uomini".