Marie Spartali Stillman | Pre-Raphaelite painter

From Christie's:

Marie Spartali Stillman was both a gifted artist and a major Pre-Raphaelite muse, who features as a model in many of the movement's most memorable works.

Stillman was the youngest daughter of wealthy Greek parents.

Her father, Michael Spartali, had made his money as a cotton merchant and served as Greek consul-general in London between 1866-1882.

The Spartali family were prominent members of the cultured and affluent Anglo-Greek community that came to have an enduring impact on the history of Victorian art; they included Burne-Jones' and Rossetti’s great patron Constantine Ionides and his family, as well as Maria Zambaco, Burne-Jones' model and mistress, and Aglaia Coronio, who sat for Rossetti.

Emilie Preyer | Still life painter

Emilie Preyer (1849-1930) was a German painter, known for her still life paintings.

Emilie Preyer was born in 1849 to an established and respected art family in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her father, Johann Wilhelm Preyer, taught at the Düsseldorf Royal Academy of Art and was considered the leading still life painter in Germany in the 19th century.

As women were not allowed to enroll in the Academy, Emilie became her father’s unofficial pupil.

The Düsseldorf Academy hit its peak of success in the mid-1800s, when it was internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious art schools in Europe.

Emilie dedicated herself exclusively to still-life painting and learned her father’s unique and meticulous draftsmanship.

María Luisa de la Riva (1865-1926)

María Luisa de la Riva y Callol de Muñoz (1865-1926) was a Spanish painter.

Riva y Callol de Muñoz was born on 4 April 1865 in Zaragoza, Spain. She studied with Ricardo Bellver and Antonio Pérez Rubio.

She was married to fellow painter Domingo Muñoz.

She exhibited regularly at the Exposiciones Nacionales de Bellas Artes where she won medals in 1897, 1901 1887, and 1895.

Riva y Callol de Muñoz exhibited her work at the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois and she also exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in 1889.

Lluïsa Vidal | Modernist painter

Lluïsa Vidal i Puig (Barcelona, 2 April 1876 - 22 October 1918) was a Spanish painter. Raised in a well-off family closely related to Catalan modernist circles, she is known as the only professional women painter of Catalan modernism, and one of the few women of that period who went abroad to receive art lessons.

Biography

Born in the number 13 of Barcelona's Trafalgar street, Lluïsa Vidal was the second of 12 siblings (nine girls and two boys): one of her sisters became associated with Pablo Casals, and another one became the wife of the philologist and writer Manuel de Montoliu.

Her father, Francesc Vidal i Jevellí, was a cabinetmaker, set designer, and a foundry worker interested in art and business.

Wisława Szymborska | Disattenzione / Distraction

Ieri mi sono comportata male nel cosmo.

Ho passato tutto il giorno senza fare domande,

senza stupirmi di niente.

Ho svolto attività quotidiane,

come se ciò fosse tutto il dovuto.

Inspirazione, espirazione, un passo dopo l’altro, incombenze,

ma senza un pensiero che andasse più in là

dell’uscire di casa e del tornarmene a casa.

Al Hogue

Lucia Heffernan, 1966

Da sempre amante degli animali, Lucia Heffernan - originaria di Taiwan -dipinge ritratti stravaganti di animali in scenari fin troppo umani.

L'artista ha ricevuto un BFA dalla Binghamton University nel 1989 ed i suoi dipinti ad olio dettagliati hanno attirato un seguito per il loro umorismo delicatamente satirico.

Le figure travestite ed antropomorfe di Heffernan provenienti da tutto il regno animale si dedicano spesso ad attività ricreative: nel punny Roller Chick (2020), un soffice uccello sfoggia pattini a rotelle in stile anni '80 e uno stereo.

Il lavoro di Heffernan strizza l'occhio anche ai giganti della storia dell'arte.

Wall Street Gothic (2020) raffigura un orso sorridente e un toro, i simboli dei cicli di boom e bust del mercato azionario, nello stile dell'iconico American Gothic di Grant Wood (1930).

Heffernan ha esposto in gallerie e fiere negli Stati Uniti ed a Hong Kong.

Pedro Salinas | Perdonami / Forgive me

Perdonami se ti cerco così

goffamente, dentro di te.

Perdonami il dolore, qualche volta.

Quello che non vedesti e che io vedo,

immerso nel tuo fondo, preziosissimo.

Maria Amaral

Emily Dickinson | Fammi un ritratto del sole!

Fammi un ritratto del sole

così che io possa appenderlo in camera mia

e possa fingere di scaldarmi

mentre gli altri lo chiamano "Giorno"!

Disegnami un pettirosso su un ramo

così che io possa ascoltarlo e sognare

Pauline Palmer | Woman in a Garden, 1910