Jean-Jacques Henner | Academic painter

Jean-Jacques Henner (5 March 1829 - 23 July 1905) was a French painter, noted for his use of sfumato and chiaroscuro in painting figures, religious subjects and portraits.

Henner was born at Bernwiller (Alsace). He began his studies in art as a pupil of Michel Martin Drolling and François-Édouard Picot.

In 1848, he entered the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, and took the Prix de Rome with a painting of Adam and Eve finding the Body of Abel in 1858.

In Rome, he was guided by Flandrin, and painted four pictures for the gallery at Colmar among other works.

Juana Romani | Belle Époque painter

Biography from: Sotheby's

Born in Velletri, Italy, Joana Carolina Carlessimo, called Juana Romani, moved with her family as a young girl to Paris, where she first encountered painting as an art school model.

At age nineteen, Romani began her training as the pupil of Jean-Jacques Henner before becoming a student of Ferdinand Roybet, and later, his mistress.

Like Roybet, she chose historical subjects and painted many portraits of young, mysterious women in costume.

Ottilie Roederstein | Portrait painter

Ottilie Wilhelmine Roederstein (22 April 1859 - 26 November 1937) was a German-Swiss painter.

She was the long-time companion of Elisabeth Winterhalter, one of the first female doctors in Germany.

Roederstein was born in Zürich, Switzerland.

Gottardo Segantini | Divisionist painter

Biography from: The British Museum

Gottardo Guido Segantini (1882-1974) - Painter and etcher. The eldest son of the painter Giovanni Segantini.

Born in Pusiano near Brianza in the province of Como.Gottardo SegantiniHe moved with his family to Savognin in Switzerland in 1882 and to Maloja in 1894.

In 1899 Gottardo Segantini spent a few months at the Accademia di Brera before going on to Zurich to study engineering at the Technical University (now ETH) where he learnt the technique of etching, and began painting in 1902.

Jan Brueghel the Elder | Baroque painter

Biography from: The National Gallery, London

Jan Brueghel the Elder was born in Brussels in 1568, the son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

He is said to have been taught in Antwerp by Pieter Goetkint and to have visited Cologne.

From 1589-1596 he worked in Italy, mainly in Naples, Rome, and Milan where he met one of his most important patrons, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who remained a lifelong friend.

Anselm Kiefer, 1945 | Neo-expressionist painter / sculptor

"Art is difficult, it is not entertainment!" - Anselm Kiefer, German painter and sculptor.

Biography from: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Anselm Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen, Baden-Württembürg, Germany, and raised near the east bank of the Rhine in the region of the Black Forest.

Kiefer was named after the nineteenth-century classical painter Anselm Feuerbach and planned from childhood to become an artist.

After studies at the university in Freiburg and the academy in Karlsruhe, he studied informally in the early 1970s with the artist Joseph Beuys on occasional visits to Düsseldorf.

Anselm Kiefer | Die fruchtbare Halbmond / La Mezzaluna fertile | Sammlung Essl Museum

Dora Hitz | Impressionist / Symbolist painter

Dora Hitz (30 March 1856, Altdorf bei Nürnberg - 20 November 1924, Berlin) was a Court Painter to the Romanian Royal Family, a member of the November Group and co-founder of the Berlin Secession.

Dora Hitz mainly painted figures, especially portraits of women, girls and mothers, sometimes in the style of symbolism.

Since her stay in France she has painted oil paintings, gouaches and watercolors in the Impressionist style.

When she was six years old, her family moved to Ansbach and at thirteen she was sent to Munich to study at the "Damenmalschule der Frau Staatsrat Weber", an art school for young women, where she studied with Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger.

Otolia Kraszewska (1859-1945)

Otolia Gräfin Kraszewska (February 15, 1859 in Żytomierz - March 3, 1945 in Munich) was a Polish cartoonist, illustrator and painter.

Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg with Ivan Aivazovsky.

Around 1890, she left for Munich and settled there permanently, becoming involved with the Polish colony centered around Józef Brandt.