Shen Hanwu 沈漢武, 1950 | Genre painter

Shen Hanwu was born in Wuhan, Hubei province.

In the 1980s, he became famous as a book illustrator. In 1986, Shen entered Wuhan Art Academy and became a professional artist.

Throughout the 1990s his oil paintings were frequently exhibited in national fine art exhibitions and in 1995, Shen became a member of the Chinese National Artists Association.

Paolo Troubetzkoy | Impressionist sculptor

Prince Paolo Petrovich Troubetzkoy / Павел Петрович Трубецкой (1866-1938) was an artist and a sculptor who was described by George Bernard Shaw as "the most astonishing sculptor of modern times".

By birth, he was a member of the ancient House of Trubetskoy.

He was the son of Russian diplomat, Prince Peter Petrovich Troubetzkoy and his second wife, lyric singer Ada Winans (1831-1917).

Endre Penovác, 1956 | Watercolor painter

Serbian painter Endre Penovác was born in Tornjoš. He finished Academy of fine arts in Novi Sad. He works as an independent artist.

He started to display in 1981, and since that time, he make group or independent exhibits in country and abroad, Croatia, Germany, France, Hungary, Bosnia. Endre Penovác lives in Bačka Topola.

He lives in Bačka Topola.

Renoir | Figures on the Beach, 1890

Figures on the Beach
Artist: Auguste Renoir (French, Limoges 1841–1919 Cagnes-sur-Mer)
Date: 1890
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 20 3/4 x 25 1/4 in. (52.7 x 64.1 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number:  1975.1.198
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 961

Isaac Levitan | Spring in Italy, 1890

Isaak Ilyich Levitan🎨 / Исаак Ильич Левитан(1860-1900), Lithuanian-born Jewish painter who was one of Russia’s most influential landscape artists and the founder of what has been called the "mood landscape".

Pier Toffoletti | COVID-19 Heroes, 2020

The first person who contracted the Coronavirus was traced back on 17 November 2019.

The virus that caused the outbreak is known as SARS-CoV-2, a newly discovered virus closely related to bat coronaviruses, pangolin coronaviruses and SARS-CoV.

Health authorities in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, China, reported a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown cause on 31 December 2019, and an investigation was launched in early January 2020.

Chen Huimin 陈慧敏, 1943 | Flowers painter

Chen Huiming 陈慧敏 is a Chinese painter🎨. In 1964 she graduated from the Beijing Institute of Arts and Design.

Chen Huiming is an outstanding representative of contemporary art.

For more than 30 years, she expresses in her works the beauty of flowers.

Alexandre Cabanel | Adam, study for Paradise Lost, 1867

French🎨 Academic and Classical painter Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889) was born in the city of Montpellier. He showed a proclivity for drawing at a young age, and was enrolled at the local art school in his hometown of Montpellier at the age of ten.

By 17, he was given the opportunity to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

In 1844, he exhibited for the first time at the Paris Salon, and was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1845.

Following his debut, he soon became a favorite of the Paris Salon.

Alexandre Cabanel | Samson and Delilah, 1878

Delilah, also spelled Dalila, in the Old Testament, the central figure of Samson’s last love story (Judges 16).

She was a Philistine who, bribed to entrap Samson, coaxed him into revealing that the secret of his strength was his long hair, whereupon she took advantage of his confidence to betray him to his enemies. Her name has since become synonymous with a voluptuous, treacherous woman.

Alexandre Cabanel | Ophelia, 1883

Christie's | Remaining faithful to historical and literary subjects as themes for his paintings, this work depicts perhaps the most complex and vivid of characters immortalised in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia.

Such a captivating character, she has held the fascination of artists for centuries, widely portrayed by Victorian masters in particular, such as Sir Thomas Francis Dicksee, John Everett Millais and John William Waterhouse among others.

Paul Gauguin | Bonjour Monsieur Gauguin, 1889

Paul Gauguin | Bonjour Monsieur Gauguin, 1889 | National Gallery in Prague

Gustave Courbet, the perhaps most famous exponent of Realism in French painting, created a number of sensational paintings.

Standing out among them is the work “The Meeting or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet” of 1854, in which Courbet shows himself out wandering, whereby he encounters his patron Alfred Bruyas and his servant. Bruyas supported Courbet and purchased the large-format painting.

When it was exhibited at the Paris World Exhibition of 1855, the audacity of the painter, who presented himself with abundant self-confidence and in a much more favourable light than his patron, was not lost on spectators.

Paul Gauguin | Washerwomen, 1888 | MoMA

Paul Gauguin | Washerwomen, 1888 | MoMA

In October 1888, Gauguin arrived in Arles where his friend Vincent Van Gogh had invited him to come and work.

The two artists had been writing to each other for several months, recording progress on their attempts to produce a non-naturalist landscape.

Paul Gauguin | Young Man with a Flower behind his Ear, 1891

Originally in the collection of the great modern master Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin's striking and evocative portrait of a young man, clad in a pink European blouse and loose cravat, with the native adornment of a small white tiaré blossom tucked over his left ear, is among the first paintings the artist completed after arriving in Tahiti in 1891.

The forthright charm of this painting stems from Gauguin's sensitive characterization of his sitter, a handsome and thoughtful man of whom the artist was clearly quite fond.

Paul Gauguin | Petit Breton à l'Oie, 1889

This important depiction of the Breton countryside is one of the pictures that Gauguin completed in 1889, when he was working in Pont Aven.

Executed with lush colors and linear undulations that presage his pictures of the tropics, this composition presents an exoticized depiction of the region, interpreted through the stylization of Gauguin’s late Symbolist aesthetic.

The romanticizing of the natural world in this picture is indicative of Gauguin's desire to escape the trappings of industrialized France in the months prior to his departure for the South Pacific. | © Sotheby's

Guillaume Seignac | Reunited, 1918-1919

This work was probably executed by Guillaume Seignac (French Academic painter, 1870-1924) in 1918-1919.

It represents two women symbolizing France and Alsace.

Seignac painted another composition in 1914, representing "Belgium, France and England before the German invasion" (Sale, Paris, April 22nd 2009, lot 87).

Peter Demetz, 1969

Born in Bolzano, Italy, awarded🎨 sculptor Peter Demetz lives and works in Ortisei (BZ).

He graduated from the Art Institute of Ortisei, he was an apprentice in the laboratory of master Heinrich Demetz.

In 1993 he obtained the master sculptor diploma.

Since then he has participated in group and solo exhibitions in Ortisei, Milan, Vail/ Colorado, Leipzig, Lichtenstein, Vienna, Florence, Bolzano, Lecce, Istanbul, Palma de Mallorca and Rome.

Bryan Larsen, 1975

Bryan Lamont Larsen Jr. is an American realist painter, born in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Larsen was inspired by the figurative works of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and other nineteenth century European painters.

He was educated at Utah State University and at the Grand Central Academy Summer Intensives.

Larsen's work includes architectural elements and figurative works, with themes emphasizing beauty, innovation, aspiration, and optimism for the future.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)

John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian Era luxury.

The Edwardian Period corresponds to the French Belle Époque period. Despite its brief pre-eminence, the period is characterised by its own unique architectural style, fashion, and lifestyle. Art Nouveau had a particularly strong influence. Artists were influenced by the development of the automobile and electricity, and a greater awareness of human rights.

Léon de Smet (Belgian painter, 1881-1966)

Léon de Smet è stato un pittore Belgo🎨 ed il fratello minore del pittore Gustave de Smet (1877-1943), anch'egli famoso pittore.

Nacque a Gand, in Belgio, nel 1881. Ha ricevuto la sua formazione artistica presso la Royal Academy of Art. Insieme a suo fratello, apparteneva ai cosiddetti pittori "Sint-Martens-Latem", un gruppo di artisti che erano attivi nella zona con lo stesso nome.

Lo stile di De Smet è caratterizzato da un tocco impressionista e pointillista.

È rinomato per la sua capacità di costruire una composizione con pennellate rapide, brevi e sottotono, mantenendo sempre l'equilibrio.

John Singer Sargent | Orestes Pursued by the Furies, 1921

'Orestes Pursued by the Furies' was created in 1921 by John Singer Sargent (American painter, 1856-1925) in Neoclassicism style.

It is part of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

"Orestes Pursued by the Furies" is an event from Greek mythology that is a recurring theme in art depicting Orestes.

In the Iliad, the king of Argos, Agamemnon, sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to the Gods to assure good sailing weather to Troy.

In Agamemnon, the first play of Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy, Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus as revenge for sacrificing Iphigenia.