Mary Sauer, 1986 | Figurative painter

Painter Mary Sauer was born in Greenville, Kentucky. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States including over a dozen shows in New York City alone.

Mary is a 2014 recipient of The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant for traditional figure painting and winner of the 2014 Director’s Award at the Springville Museum of Art’s annual Spring Salon.

Mary's art is influenced by nineteenth century painting including John Singer Sargent, the Pre-Raphealites, and the French Academics as well as contemporary realist academic painting and fashion photography.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Bay of Naples, 1881

The corner of the balcony visible at lower left in this composition indicates Renoir’s vantage point overlooking the bay of Naples.

His position afforded an iconic view of the harbor with the volcano Mount Vesuvius in the background, wafting smoke into the sky.

Inspired by the southern Italian light, Renoir painted another version of this vista at a different time of day (The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.).

James Duncan, a wealthy sugar refiner, purchased the present work in 1883, making it the first Impressionist picture acquired by a Scottish collector.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Bay of Naples, 1881 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alfred H. Maurer | Post-impressionist painter

Alfred Henry Maurer (1868-1932) was an American Modernist painter.

He exhibited his work in avant-garde circles internationally and in New York City during the early twentieth century.

Highly respected today, his work met with little critical or commercial success in his lifetime, and he died, a suicide, at the age of sixty-four.

Paul Molda | Impressionist painter

Paul Molda (Pavel Ioan Popescu) was born in 1884, in Negulești, Tecuci, Galați county, and died in 1955, in Bucharest.

He attended the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest and the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.

He painted both landscapes and portraits and restored the painting of several churches.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck | Baroque painter

Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) was the most important Flemish painter of the 17th century after Rubens, whose works influenced the young Van Dyck.

He also studied and was profoundly influenced by the work of Italian artists, above all, Titian.

Anthony van Dyck studied under Peter Paul Rubens and was one of his most accomplished students.

Ferdinand du Puigaudeau | Neo-Impressionist painter

French painter Ferdinand Loyen du Puigaudeau (1864-1896) is often known for his mystical scenes of processions and carnivals around Pont Aven and by his association with the Gauguin and the Pont Aven School.

Still, after Gauguin moved on to the Pacific and many of the other artists of the group to Paris, Puigaudeau remained on the coast, moving an estate called Kervaudu at Le Croisic, near the mouth of the Loire.

Once there, he turned his attention to the beautiful landscape of the region: coastal cliffs with twisting fig trees, flowering fields dotted with small villages.

Gioacchino La Pira | The Blue Grotto on Capri island

The Blue Grotto / Grotta Azzurra, is a sea cave on the coast of the island of Capri, southern Italy.

Sunlight shining through an underwater cavity is reflected back upward through the seawater below the cavern, giving the water a blue glow that illuminates the cavern.

The cave extends some 50 metres into the cliff at the surface, and is about 150 metres (490 ft) deep, with a sandy bottom.

Gioacchino La Pira | The Blue Grotto on Capri island

The Blue Grotto is one of several sea caves worldwide that is flooded with a brilliant blue or emerald light.

The quality and nature of the color in each is determined by its unique combination of depth, breadth, water clarity, and light source.

Lionel Walden | Seascape painter

A famous painter of seascapes and marine scenes, Lionel Walden (1861-1933) was born in Connecticut.

He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there.

As a young man Walden moved to Paris where he studied with E. A. Carolus-Duran.