Alice Neel | Abstract Expressionist painter

From: MoMa - The Museum of Modern Art

---

Alice Neel's (1900-1984) portraits hinge on trust. A figurative painter throughout the 20th century, she created work known for its deliberate distortion, bold outlines, expressive brushwork, and imaginative use of color.

Neel gained her subjects’ trust by inviting them into her home and telling them stories.

"She lulled you", recounted artist and friend Benny Andrews, whom she painted along with his wife, the photographer Mary Ellen Andrews, in 1972.

Her sitters knew that while her paintings may not always be flattering, she would paint what lay beneath the surface and she would not judge.

Max Slevogt | Impressionist painter

Max Slevogt (8 October 1868 - 20 September 1932) was a German Impressionist painter and illustrator, best known for his landscapes.

He was, together with Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, one of the foremost representatives in Germany of the plein air style.

He was born in Landshut, Germany, in 1868. From 1885 to 1889 he studied at the Munich Academy, and his early paintings are dark in tone, exemplifying the prevailing style in Munich.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela | Art Nouveau / Symbolist painter

Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.

His work is considered a very important aspect of the Finnish national identity.

He changed his name from Gallén to Gallen-Kallela in 1907.

Early life

Gallen-Kallela was born Axel Waldemar Gallén in Pori, Finland, in a Swedish-speaking family.

His father Peter Gallén worked as police chief and lawyer.

Gallen-Kallela was raised in Tyrvää.

At the age of 11 he was sent to Helsinki to study at a grammar school, because his father opposed his ambition to become a painter.

After his father's death in 1879, Gallen-Kallela attended drawing classes at the Finnish Art Society (1881-1884) and studied privately under Adolf von Becker.

Legge di Murphy: "Nulla è impossibile per colui che non deve farlo!"

Della Espertologia | Capitolo Nono

Regola aurea delle arti e delle scienze

• Chi ha l'oro fa le regole.

Legge di Gummidge

• Il costo di una expertise è inversamente proporzionale al numero di parole comprensibili.

Legge di Dunne

• Il territorio alle spalle della retorica è spesso minato di equivoci.

Jonathan Wolstenholme

Laurits Tuxen | Skagen painter/sculptor

From: Art Museums of Skagen

---

Laurits Regner Tuxen was brought up in Copenhagen. As the son of a naval officer, he originally wanted to be a marine artist. When training at the Royal Danish Academy of fine Arts, he and Peder Severin Krøyer were considered to be the most talented students.

Tuxen first visited Skagen in 1870, and he returned several times during the 1870s. More than 20 years would pass before he returned in 1901.

During that time Tuxen trained as a painter in Paris together with Peder Severin Krøyer and he was one of the co-founders of the Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler, which was established as an alternative to the academy.

Tuxen became a popular portrait painter and travelled a lot due to commissions from the royal courts of Europe.

Sir Cedric Morris | Post-Impressionist painter

Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet (11 December 1889 - 8 February 1982) was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman.

He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia.

As an artist he is best known for his portraits, flower paintings and landscapes.

Painting style

Cedric Morris had a distinctive and often rather primitive post-Impressionist style, and painted portraits, landscapes and very decorative still lifes of flowers and birds.

In his analysis of Morris's paintings, Richard Morphet has suggested that the "unusual force of Cedric's paintings derives from the projection of the subject through a dynamic economy in combination with an acute sense of pictorial realism".

Dod Procter | Figurative painter

Dod Procter, born Doris Margaret Shaw, RA (1890-1972) was an English artist, and the wife of the artist Ernest Procter.

Her painting Morning was bought for the public by the Daily Mail in 1927.

Procter and her husband attended art schools in England and in Paris together, where they were both influenced by Impressionism and the Post-Impressionism movements.

Eva Bagge (Swedish, 1871-1964)

Eva Bagge (15 December 1871 - 6 November 1964) was a Swedish painter who studied first in Sweden and then made study trips to Rome and Paris.

Remembered in particular for her farm scenes and interiors, she did not reach her peak until 1941 when works based on her approach to late 19th-century Realism attracted attention at her solo exhibition in a Stockholm gallery.

Such was the interest that they were soon exhibited in Munich and Berlin. Several Swedish art museums, including Stockholm's Nationalmuseum, have works by Bagge in their collections.

Born on 15 December 1871 in Stockholm, Eva Bagge was the daughter of the printing press director Per Olof Bagge (1833-1872) and his wife Henrika Ottiliana née von Fieandt. She was the youngest of the family's three children and the cousin of artist Elisabeth Bagge.