Juan Gris - Guitar with Clarinet [1920]

José Victoriano González-Pérez (March 23, 1887 – May 11, 1927), better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life. His works are closely connected to the emergence of an innovative artistic genre - Cubism. At first Gris painted in the analytic style of Cubism, but after 1913 he began his conversion to synthetic Cubism, of which he became a steadfast interpreter, with extensive use of papier collé. Unlike Picasso and Braque, whose Cubist works were monochromatic, Gris painted with bright harmonious colours in daring, novel combinations in the manner of his friend Matisse.

Pascal Adolf Jean Dagnan-Bouveret - Watercolourist in the Louvre [1889]

Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret (January 7, 1852 – 1929) was one of the leading French artists of the academic school. He was born in Paris, the son of a tailor, and was raised by his grandfather after his father emigrated to Brazil. Later he added his grandfather’s name, Bouveret, to his own. He was one of the first to use the then new medium of photography to bring greater realism to his paintings. In 1891, he was made an Officer of the Legion of Honour; in 1900 he became a member of the Institut de France.

[Oil on panel, 35.5 x 30.5 cm]

Ferdinand Heilbuth - Rowing on the Seine [1860-80]

Ferdinand Heilbuth (Hamburg, June 27, 1826 - Paris, November 19, 1889) was a Franco-German painter. He left his studies to become a Rabbi and traveled to Dusseldorf, Rome and Paris with one of France’s most important artists, Gleyre. In 1876, Heilbuth became a citizen of France. He had an exhibition in London at the Royal Academy and at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1871 and 1878. He was invited to show in the Royal Academy in 1858 and 1861. He was voted and decorated into the Legion of Honour. He also exhibited at the Boston Atheneum in 1863. He exhibited again in 1869 and 1870. Heilbuth exhibited twice at the Royal Academy and a total of seventeen times at the Grosvenor Gallery.

[Oil on panel, 35 x 56 cm]

Duffy Sheridan - Alexis

Duffy Sheridan has been painting since he was a child. His father, also an artist, encouraged him to learn to paint anything and everything. He has traveled the world and dedicated his artistic life to the discovery and expression of beauty as he sees it. His paintings can be found in prestigious institutions from a Cathedral in the South Pacific to the US Air Force Academy to corporate headquarters in Manhattan, as well as in the private residences of kings, judges, bishops, doctors and collectors all over the world.

[Oil on linen, 16 x 18 inches]

Oswald Achenbach - Fireworks in Naples [1875]

Oswald Achenbach (Dusseldorf, February 2, 1827 – Dusseldorf, February 1, 1905) was a German landscape painter. His landscapes generally dwell on the rich and glowing effects of colour which drew him to the Bay of Naples and the neighborhood of Rome. From 1863 to 1872 he was Professor of Landscape Painting connected to the Dusseldorf School. He died in Düsseldorf of an inflammation of the lungs. He is represented at most of the important German galleries of modern art.

[Oil on canvas, 65.5 x 101.5 cm]

Vita Pagh - Modern Art

“I'm a Danish artist living in the beautiful countryside of Sweden. Throughout my life, I have always been fascinated by the art and craftwork from different cultures around the world. Since the beginning of civilization, mankind has always had the wish (need!) of expressing ourselves without words. My primary source of inspiration are nature, music, architecture, archaeology...and cats! Everyday I have the fortune of being surrounded by the nature I love and when my favourite music of Mozart or Bach is played, I cannot keep away from paper, paint and brushes!”

Pierre Billet - Digging for Oysters [1884]

A nineteenth century French painter and etcher Pierre Billet (Cantin, 1837 - Paris, 1922) studied art in Paris under Jules and Emile Breton. He first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1867 and was a frequent contributor for the following forty years. He was awarded both third and second class medals during the 1870's and 1880's and he also received prizes from competitions in London, Glasgow and New York.

[Oil on canvas, 115 x 180 cm]

Henri Matisse - Ballerina [c.1927]

In 1920 Matisse became acquainted with 19-year-old Henriette Darricarrère, who became his model for the next seven years. The girl was a ballet dancer at the cinematic Studios de la Victorine and sometimes posed for a photographer. Matisse was attracted not only by Henriette's looks, her finely honed powerful body (it was no coincidence that she also posed for Matisse's sculpture), but also by her artistry.

The painting Ballerina is remarkable for the exquisite simplicity of the treatment of colour and the compositional balance. The background is almost abstract: four horizontal stripes of different colours that set off the figure of the young dancer. It is hard to say exactly what Henriette is sitting on, but it is not that important. The figure is at one and the same time opposed to the background and connected with it by the chromatic echoes between the costume and various parts of the background. In 1927 Matisse painted Henriette twice more, but in 1928 she got married and stopped posing for the artist.

[Oil on canvas, 65 x 50 cm]

Henri Matisse - Portrait of the Artist’s Wife [1913]

Matisse painted this portrait of his wife in the summer of 1913, in the garden of his house at Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris. Amelie posed for her husband in a green garden chair, looking elegant, relaxed and firmly in control. Her pose is precisely but simply conveyed, her erect back and her perfect dress-sense making her the very epitome of the Parisian "dame". The artist made use of the traditional scheme of an official, society portrait, but gave it a totally untraditional resonance. Amelie's face lies in greenish shade. The simple outline and severely schematic features recall a mask, something which not only hides the inner essence of the sitter but embodies some mysterious content which cannot be explained by logic or clarity.

[Oil on canvas, 146 x 97.7 cm]

Henri Matisse - Painter’s Family [1911]

[Oil on canvas, 143 x 194 cm]

Henri Matisse - Girl with Tulips [1910]

Jeanne Vaderin, the model for this painting, was in convalescence at Issey-les-Moulineaux, where the artist rented a house in 1910. "My models, the figures of people, are never static elements in an interior. They are the main theme of my work," wrote Matisse in 1908. There is something gentle and melancholy, something fragile and refined in the face and slightly asymmetrical figure of the girl whom Matisse and his wife affectionately called Jeannette. The girl was also the model for a number of other works, including a series of bronze heads.

The interaction between the flowers and the human figure forms the central theme of the work. The strong stems of the tulips forcing themselves upwards in an expression of rebirth and the coming spring, the thick green colour of the sharp leaves, everything carries within it the energy of growth. Nature and man seem to cancel each other's specific

[Oil on canvas, 92 x 73.5 cm]

Henri Matisse - Music [1910]

Matisse worked on the huge canvas for Music without preparatory sketches and rethought the composition numerous times. The canvas thus bears the traces of numerous alterations, and we can almost trace all the steps in the artist's difficult search for the desired effect.

Music is built up of the same three elements as The Dance: the same expressive harmony of green, red and blue; the five simplified figures of musicians and singers accord with the five dancers; as in The Dance, Man is one with Earth and Heaven. He has mounted the hill, torn himself away from everyday routine and become an image-symbol, existing outside of time and space. But Music amazes us with its concentrated calm, the absolute immobility of the isolated figures, the total concentration on the playing of musical instruments and singing. The open mouths seem to resonate and force us to physically experience the human voices pouring from within. Whilst the figures, who seem almost like musical notation on a page, are totally enclosed within themselves, the music unites them in a single whole, the violin-playing conductor acting as the central figure in the composition.

[Oil on canvas, 260 x 389 cm]

Henri Matisse - Dance [1910]

Before this canvas, the theme of the dance passed through several stages in Matisse's work. Only in this composition of 1910, however, did it acquire its famous passion and expressive resonance. The frenzy of the pagan bacchanalia is embodied in the powerful, stunning accord of red, blue and green, uniting Man, Heaven and Earth.

How rightly has Matisse captured the profound meaning of the dance, expressing man's subconscious sense of involvement in the rhythms of nature and the cosmos. The five figures have firm outlines, while the deformation of those figures is an expression of their passionate arousal and the power of the all-consuming rhythm. The swift, joint movement fills the bodies with untamed life force and the red becomes a symbol of inner heat. The figures dance in the deep blue of the Cosmos and the green hill is charged with the energy of the dancers, sinking beneath their feet and then springing back.

For all its expressiveness, Matisse's Dance has no superfluous emotion, other than that required by the subject. The very organisation of the canvas ensures that. Instinct and consciousness are united into a harmonious whole, as we can feel in the balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces, and in the outlines of the figure on the left, strong and classical in proportion.

[Oil on canvas, 260 x 391 cm]

Henri Matisse - Still Life with The Dance [1909]

Here we see part of the artist's studio on the Boulevard des Invalides. In his experiments with space and colour, the artist often took a corner of one his studios as the point of departure, increasingly so in the 1910s. Turning the table such that its corner moves sharply into the depths of the painting, Matisse shows the viewer his studio, fixing attention on the large panel, The Dance, standing on the easel.

[Oil on canvas, 89.5 x 117.5 cm]

Henri Matisse - Conversation [1908-12]

Conversation, painted in the artist's country house in the summer of 1909, is one of the important works Matisse produced during the highly productive period 1908-1913. The central figures of Matisse and his wife Amelie are schematic, while still retaining a portrait likeness. Most importantly, whilst depicting a moment in real life, Matisse "captures the truer and more profound meaning behind it, which serves the artist as a point of departure for a more consistent interpretation of reality," as he himself wrote in 1908. We enter into the blue world of the Conversation, sink deep into the atmosphere of colour. The blue colour does not represent solidity; this is not the colour of the carpet or the colour of the wall. Filling a large part of the painting space, the blue bears the concept of space through the force of the associations it gives rise to. It is cold; it is emotional and significant; it excites us with its profundity. Submitting to the blue's dominance, the green becomes not only the colour of the meadow but a symbol of the earth, a symbol of Life, an image which is reinforced by the straight, strong trunk of "the tree of life". In this ideal world of pure light-colour we find two figure-symbols embodying the two eternal sources of Life. In the contrast and mutual attraction of the straight lines (male) and the soft, emotional, lines curving (female) lies one of the mysteries of existence.

[Oil on canvas, 177 x 217 cm]

Henri Matisse - The Red Room [1908]

In his Paris studio with its windows looking out over a monastery garden, in 1908 Matisse created one of his most important works of the period 1908-1913: The Red Room. The artist himself called this a "decorative panel" and it was intended for the dining room in the Moscow mansion of the famous Russian collector Sergey Shchukin.

Matisse turned to a motif common in the works created that year: a room decorated with vases, fruits and flowers. Yet, as he wrote in 1908, "the basis of my thinking has not changed, but the very thinking has evolved and my means of expression have followed on." The luxuriant raspberry red fabric with its energetic twists of blue pattern seems to sink down from the wall, taking over the surface of the table and uniting it in a single whole, swallowing up the three-dimensional space of the room and masterfully confirming the decorative potential of the canvas surface. Matisse first made such uncompromising use of this compositional device here, in The Red Room.

But in affirming the flatness of the red colour, the artist managed to create within it the impression of space, space within which the female figure bending over the vase could move and within which the sharp angled view of the chair seemed natural. The window, through which we see a green garden with flowering plants, allows the eye to move into the depths of the canvas.

[Oil on canvas, 180 x 221 cm]

Henri Matisse - Dishes and Fruit [1901]

In 1901, the year in which this work was painted, a retrospective exhibition was held in Paris of the work of van Gogh, who had died in 1890. The exhibition was to have an important influence on young artists and the colouring in this painting may owe some debt to a visit to the exhibition. Matisse's development in this direction, however, was already predetermined by his unique gift for colour.

The pure colour in the still life is intense and rich. The deep and complex lilac-violet, the powerful ring of the orange jug, which seems to have absorbed the heat of the sun; the yellow lemon in the cold shade and the bright red handle, the colour of the latter seeming to find confirmation not only in the ripe tomato but in the whole painterly construction of the canvas.

[Oil on canvas, 51 x 61.5 cm]

Henri Matisse - Vase of Sunflowers [c.1898-99]

On the basis of style, scholars have allocated this still life to a group of works created in Corsica in 1898-1899. The trip to Corsica, the influence of the blinding light of the southern sun and the rich southern landscape, contributed to Matisse's rejection of the Impressionist atmosphere of changing, flickering light and air in his paintings. Almost Cezanne-like, Matisse made the air heavier, intensifying light and form. The sunflower motif, the flowers still continuing to radiate the sun's energy, may well not have been an accidental choice. Like the energetic impasto brushstrokes, it leads us to recall the work of van Gogh and to consider the latter's influence on the development of the young artist.

[Oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm]

Henri Matisse - Fruit and Coffeepot [c.1898]

In arranging these everyday objects on the canvas, Matisse explored the experience of his predecessors, taking up and moving beyond their painterly and compositional principles, actively seeking his own style.

Light still draws the artist's attention; the softly modelled fruits, dish and cup exist within an almost tangible light environment. But they do not dissolve into that light; rather, the energetic moulding of the coffeepot with broad brushstrokes increases the sense of mass, while the coloured contour emphasises each object. Colour has here acquired greater independence than was seen in earlier works. The intensity of the reflected colours on the surface of the coffeepot, the thick broad areas of coloured shadow on the tablecloth, all state the artist's increasing interest in this element. Matisse's world was becoming less dependent on concrete reality, and he created a greater distance from that reality by using a high viewpoint which enabled him to see the objects from a strange and unnatural angle.

[Oil on canvas, 38.5 x 46.5 cm]

Henri Matisse - Blue Pot and Lemon [1897]

This is the earliest of all the paintings by Matisse in the exhibition. Executed in 1897, it allows us to see how his work, albeit for but a short time, reflecting the Impressionist view of the world. This makes itself felt in the direct contact with nature and the depiction of the world as a unity of light and colour.

The light softly flowing from the window fills the painting with coloured reflections and the concrete world of objects seems to be in the power of the vibrant light environment. The lemon and the blue pot, by the very nature of their colours and as important elements in the painting, which "support" the composition, could easily have become resonant colour accents, but in Impressionist manner Matisse carefully subordinates colour to light, thus dulling their intensity.

Yet in this small work there is none of the Impressionist fragmentation of surface. Light achieves its colour transformations within the precisely organised space of the painting: the sharp diagonal of the window-ledge and the clear verticals and horizontals of the walls and window make the composition dynamic and yet stable at the same time.

[Oil on canvas, 39 x 46.5 cm]

Andrew Wyeth - Helga

The Helga Pictures are a series of more than 240 paintings and drawings of German model Helga Testorf created by Andrew Wyeth (July 12, 1917 - January 16, 2009) between 1971 and 1985. Testorf was a neighbour of Wyeth's in Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania, and over the course of fifteen years posed for Wyeth indoors and out of doors, nude and clothed, in attitudes that reminded writers of figures painted by Botticelli and Edouard Manet. To John Updike, her body "is what Winslow Homer’s maidens would have looked like beneath their calico." The sessions were a secret even to their spouses. Although Wyeth denied that there had been a physical relationship with Testorf, the secrecy surrounding the sessions and public speculation of an affair created a strain in the Wyeths' marriage. Well after the paintings were finished Testorf remained close to Wyeth and helped care for him in his old age.

Vincent van Gogh - Morning, Going out to Work (after Millet) [1890]

Jean-François Millet was a master to whose works Vincent van Gogh constantly returned, reflecting on them, studying and copying them. Millet's The Four Hours of the Day was constantly in Van Gogh's sight. In 1875, describing the room he had rented in Montmartre, he lists this series among the engravings he has chosen to decorate it. In November 1889 - January 1890, in the asylum in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh executed the entire series of paintings from The Four Hours of the Day on the largest canvases he had available. In a letter to his brother the artist wrote: "Working on Millet's drawings and wood engravings cannot be considered copying in the strict sense of the word. It is rather translation into another language, the language of paints, of impressions created by the black-and-white light and shadow."

[Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm]

Lois Mailou Jones - Jeune Fille Francaise [1951]

Lois Mailou Jones (November 3, 1905 – June 9, 1998) was a prize winning artist who lived into her nineties and who painted and influenced others during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond during her long teaching career. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts and is buried on her beloved Martha's Vineyard in the Oak Bluffs Cemetery.

[Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 59.7 cm]

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Odalisque with Slave [1842]

An odalisque (female member of a harem) reclines exposed in the harem listening to a servant's lute music. This painting was commissioned by King Wilhelm I of Württemberg and was executed by Ingres (French, 1780 - 1867) with the assistance of his pupil Paul Flandrin. A version of this subject painted three years earlier shows the odalisque in an enclosed room rather than with the garden vista in the background. This exotic composition, which was inspired by a passage from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Turkish Letters (1763), may have been conceived by Ingres in response to his rival Eugène Delacroix's success as a painter of Near Eastern subjects.

[Oil on canvas, 76 x 105 cm]

Mary Jane Ansell - Protection

Acclaimed artist Mary Jane Ansell is a previous finalist in the prestigious BP Portrait Award in 2004, 2009 & 2010, and has exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. Her recent work demonstrates the influence of 17th Century Dutch still-life and portraiture on her continued interest in constructing pictorial narratives, and in the use of light to create a sensual and dramatic visual experience.

[Oil on panel, 15 x 15 inches]

Pompeo Batoni - Thetis Takes Achilles from the Centaur Chiron [1770]

The Russian Empress Catherine II commissioned the painting from Batoni and herself selected the theme, probably finding it in Giovanni Boccaccio's De Genealogia Deorum (The Genealogy of the Gods).

In the 18th century scenes from the story of Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, were much in fashion. Achilles's mother, the goddess Thetis, gave him over to be brought up by the centaur Chiron. Learning that her son must die in the war against the Trojans she decided to deceive fate and removed the sleeping Achilles from Chiron, fleeing in a shell to the protection of King Lycomedes on the Island of Scyros. The nymphs carefully carry the sleeping Achilles to the shell, while nearby, Thetis says farewell to Chiron. The ideal proportions of the figures recall ancient statues. The pure resonant colours of the robes (blue, red, white and pink) are set off against the calm brownish-grey of the cliffs.

[Oil on canvas, 226.5 x 297.5 cm]

Gustave Caillebotte - The Floor-Scrapers [1875]

For further information please click the artist’s label.

Pompeo Batoni - Continence of Scipio [c.1771-72]

From the Renaissance onwards The Continence of Scipio was an extremely popular subject in European art. During the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), the Roman military commander Publius Cornelius Scipio (c. 235-183 BC) took the city of New Carthage in Spain. The Romans gained vast booty and the historian Livy tells how Scipio could have taken as his concubine the most beautiful and noble girl of the city, captured along with many others, but did not make use of his right, returning her to her beloved.

Batoni's canvas forms a pair with Thetis Takes Achilles from the Centaur Chiron, likewise commissioned by Catherine the Great and also in the Hermitage. The two works are similar both in composition and in colouring. Scipio wears a deep pink cloak (this is the colour of the victorious hero) as he returns the girl to her kneeling beloved, while the white dress of the prisoner symbolizes her innocence. There are various marvellously painted vases in the foreground: Batoni was a jeweller in his youth and he loved to make small, detailed, elegant still lifes through the introduction of extraneous items.

[Oil on canvas, 226.5 x 297.5 cm]

Jan de Bray - The Haarlem Printer Abraham Casteleyn and his wife Margarieta van Banck [1663]

The Haarlem artist, Jan de Bray (c.1627 – 1697) may have been taught by his father, the painter and architect Salomon de Bray. Jan de Bray is mainly known for his stately portraits. He was also a master of informal portraits, as can be seen from his lively depiction of a Haarlem printer and his wife, Abraham Casteleyn and Margarieta van Bancken.

In this unusual portrait Jan de Bray has portrayed the couple in an informal setting, relaxing on the terrace. The portrait was painted in 1663: the artist's signature and date are on the cupboard on the left. Casteleyn and his wife had by then been married for two years. The way they hold each other's hands symbolises their marital fidelity. The vine to the right of Margarieta represents the mutual commitment between husband and wife. An unusual feature is the friendly and relaxed expression of both Abraham and Margarieta. This informal pose and the cheerful faces are far from common in seventeenth-century portraiture. Abraham is sitting sideways in his chair and is holding his wife's hand. She is leaning towards him. From his gesture with his right he appears to be about to speak. His hat is on a pile of books; indoors he wore a simple skullcap. Casteleyn and his wife were Mennonites, a Christian sect that believed in the virtues of a sober life. This was the type of dress they wore: simple and unpretentious.

[Oil on canvas, 84 x 108 cm]

Walter Rane - Sewing the Spine

Walter Rane was born and raised in southern California. After high school he studied at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. There he found the traditional approach to drawing and painting that he desired. This discipline, combined with an emphasis on the human figure remains central to his art today. Walter Rane continues to live in Oregon with his wife, Linda, they have four sons and two daughters-in-law.

[Oil on board, 23 x 21 inches]

Jean-Leon Gérôme - A Roman Slave Market [c.1884]

Gérôme (French, 1824 - 1904) painted six slave-market scenes set in either ancient Rome or 19th-century Istanbul. The subject provided him with an opportunity to depict facial expressions and to undertake figurative studies of sensual beauty.

[Oil on canvas, 64.1 x 56.9 cm]

Chris Sedgwick - Gatekeepers of the Cycle

Sedgwick’s work utilizes interpenetrating layers of symbolism, mysticism, and narrative to construct a spiritual landscape in which beings channel a timeless natural energy. His figures are often shown in isolated landscapes deep in the acts of ritual or divination. Chris draws influence from Hans Memling, Early European master works, ancient symbols, universal archetypes, esoteric knowledge, and the rich database of scientific discoveries. Chris exhibits in Asheville, NC and currently lives and works in the high desert region of New Mexico.

See: http://www.crsedgwick.com/

[Oil on canvas, 64 x 48 inches]

Alfred Stevens - The Painter and His Model [1855]

Alfred Stevens (Belgian, 1823 - 1906), a native of Brussels, spent much of his career in Paris where he was regarded as one of the most important recorders of the bourgeois and aristocratic levels of la vie moderne. In this early work, a young woman leans over the shoulder of an artist, presumably Stevens himself, who is regarding his unfinished canvas on the easel. Hanging in the background of the studio is a Flemish tapestry showing an Adoration scene.

[Oil on fabric, 92.4 x 77.3 cm]

François Flameng - Mrs Adeline M Noble [1903]

François Flameng (1856 - 1923) was a very successful French painter during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th. He was the son of a celebrated engraver and received a first-rate education in his craft. Flameng initially received renown for his history painting and portraiture, and became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. He decorated such important civic buildings as the Sorbonne and the Opera Comique, and also produced advertising work. Flameng was granted France's highest civilian honour, the Legion d'Honneur, and designed France's first bank notes.

[Oil on canvas, 88.90 x 72.40 cm]

Duffy Sheridan - Head Study with White Scarf

For further information please click artist label.

[Oil on linen, 18 x 18 inches]

Marco Ortolan - Venice Clown

Marco Ortolan was born on August 1, 1973 in Arquitecto, Argentina.

“Line, shape and colour are the foundation of good painting and it is there where I try to capture the best of my art.”

See: http://marcoortolan.blogspot.com/

and http://www.artbreak.com/marcoortolan/works

[Oil on wood, 70 x 50 cm]

Lawrence Alma-Tadema - The Frigidarium [1890]

A Frigidarium is a large cold pool to drop into after enjoying a hot Roman bath. The Caldarium and the Tepidaium opened the pores of the skin. The cold water would close the pores. There would be a small pool of cold water or sometimes a large swimming pool.

Paul Joseph Constantin Gabriel - A Watercourse at Abcoude [1878]

This is a typical Dutch landscape with water, a few trees, a man fishing, some cows and a mill in the distance. The broad watercourse, directs the viewer's gaze towards the distance. In this way the artist Paul Gabriel, created a strong effect of perspective. The low horizon is a typical feature in Dutch landscape painting, allowing the subtly coloured cloudy sky to form an important part of the composition. In 1878, when Gabriel painted this landscape, he was living in Brussels. He paid frequent visits to Holland to depict the polder landscape in sketches and paintings. This watery landscape is close to the village of Abcoude, a stone's throw from Amsterdam.

[Oil on panel, 41 x 50 cm]

Israel Zohar - Nude at the Window

Israel Zohar is a painter born in Kazakhstan on February 7, 1945. He spent the first several years of his life travelling between various countries of Eastern Europe in what is now the former Soviet Bloc. At around the age of three he and his parents settled in Nesher, a small village in the north of Israel. He grew up with an interest in chess and Classical music, cultural phenomena that were foreign to his little village. As a teenager he began to express interest in art, and participated seriously in athletics and basketball. He was not allowed to finish high school, for reasons that are historically unclear. At the age of 18 he went to the Army, and narrowly escaped court-marshal after some military maps of Syria and Lebanon disappeared from his patrol jeep. In 1967 he fought in the Six Day War.

Zoey Frank - Zack

Zoey Frank was born in Boulder, Colorado in 1987. She is currently studying classical painting under Juliette Aristides in Seattle. She works daily from the model and is captivated by both the idiosyncrasies of each individual and the archetypes they embody.

See: http://zoeyfrank.blogspot.com/

[Oil on panel, 16 x 12 inches]

Johann Hamza - The Feather Makers [1902]

Johann Hamza, an Austrian artist, was born on June 21, 1850 in Vienna and died there in 1927. He was a painter of genre scenes and portraits. He was a pupil of Edward Von Engerth with the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna. He Exhibited in Vienna, Dresden, and Munich, from 1879 to 1890. The works of this artist are in great demand.