Konstantinos Kavafis | Per le scale / On the stairs / Στες σκάλες

Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, noto in Italia anche come Costantino Kavafis / Κωνσταντίνος Καβάφης (Alessandria d'Egitto, 1863-1933), è stato un poeta e giornalista Greco.

Kavafis era uno scettico che fu accusato di attaccare i tradizionali valori della cristianità, del patriottismo e dell'eterosessualità, anche se non sempre si trovò a suo agio nel ruolo di anticonformista.

Pubblicò 154 poesie, spesso ispirate all'antichità ellenistica, romana e bizantina, ma molte altre sono rimaste incomplete od allo stato di bozza.

Scrisse le sue poesie più importanti dopo i quarant'anni.

Come un recluso, egli non fu mai riconosciuto durante la sua vita.

Oltre che i suoi soggetti, anticonvenzionali per l'epoca, le sue poesie mostrano anche un'abile e versatile arte, che viene spesso perduta nella traduzione delle sue opere.

La sua poetica viene insegnata nelle scuole greche.

Andre Kohn

Andre Kohn, 1972 | Ladies and hats

André Kohn, Russian painter, was born in Stalingrad, but was raised in the southernmost region of the Former Soviet Union near the Caspian Sea.

He spent the first 12 years of his life surrounded by nature before moving with his family to Moscow in 1984.

The precise convergence of three dynamic forces-culture, environment and talent-combined to produce one of the most collected figurative painters on the American art scene today.

Felix Nussbaum | Artist of the Holocaust

"If I perish, don’t let my works die; show them to the public", Felix Nussbaum begged a friend before he was deported to Auschwitz.

Felix Nussbaum painted multiple self-portraits during the Holocaust, giving us a unique artistic insight into the experience of one man, among the millions that were murdered.

Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944) was a German-Jewish surrealist painter.

Nussbaum's paintings, including Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card (1943) and Triumph of Death (1944), explore his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust.

Felix Nussbaum | Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card / Autoritratto con passaporto ebraico, 1943

His work is usually associated with the New Objectivity movement, and was influenced by the works of Giorgio de Chirico, Henri Rousseau and Vincent van Gogh.

He took refuge in Belgium after the Nazi rise to power, but was deported to Auschwitz along with his wife Felka Platek only a few months before the British liberation of Brussels on 3 September 1944.

Peter Wever, 1950 | Embrace painting

German painter Peter Wever received his training at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland, followed by travels in the United States and Guatemala.

Wever is known for his color etchings often dealing with relationships.

His work has warmth, and often a touch of humour.

Konstantinos Kavafis | Muri / Walls / Τείχη

Senza preavviso, né pietà, senza nessun pudore,

muri massicci ed alti mi hanno costruito intorno.

E sono qui che mi dispero e per il mio dolore

non penso ad altro: e mi rodo il cervello tutto il giorno.

René Magritte

James Ensor | The Oyster Eater / La mangiatrice di ostriche, 1882

"The Oyster Eater" is an oil painting executed in 1882 by the Belgian Expressionist artist James Ensor which is now in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.

The genre work depicts the artist's sister Mitche eating oysters on her own at a well-appointed table replete with flowers, plates, wine and table linen.

Art critics were unapologetic about James Ensor's "The Oyster Eater".

"Offensive! Immoral! Vice!"

Yet there is not a streak of nudity to be seen, nor intimately entwined bodies.

So what was the problem?

Anna Boch | Post-impressionist painter

Anna Boch participated in the Neo-Impressionist movement.

Her early works used a Pointillist technique, but she is best known for her Impressionist style which she adopted for most of her career.

A pupil of Isidore Verheyden, she was influenced by Théo van Rysselberghe whom she met in the artistic group, Les XX.

Anna-Rosalie Boch (1848-1936), known as Anna, was a Belgian painter, art collector, and the only female member of the artistic group, Les XX.

Frantz Charlet | Impressionist painter

Frantz Charlet (1862-1928) was a Belgian painter, etcher and lithographer.

An Impressionist, he was one of the founding members in 1882, with James Ensor and Théo van Rysselberghe (1862-1926) of the group Les XX.

It is one of the first painters in Belgium to look for brighter colours and a spontaneous touch, thus becoming closer French Impressionists.

Charlet studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 1872-1873 and again from 1876-1881; among his fellow pupils there were Eugène Broerman, François-Joseph Halkett, Théo van Rysselberghe and Rodolphe Wytsman, and his teacher was Jean-François Portaels.