Jan Preisler

Jan Preisler, “Black Lake”, circa 1904, Oil on Canvas, 111 x 153 cm, National Gallery, Prague

Born at the Litavka River town of Králův Dvůr in February of 1872, Jan Preisler was a Czech painter, decorative designer and art professor, a leading figure of Czech Symbolism and early Modernism.

The son of an iron foundry worker, Jan Preisler was educated at a municipal school in Popović. A loner by nature, his early talent at drawing enabled him to receive financial aid for studies in Prague. In 1887 at the age of fifteen, Preisler entered the recently opened School of Applied Arts, now the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design. He studied under Czech painter František Ženíšek, a member of the Generation of the National Theatre.

During his studies at school, Preisler became a member of Prague’s artists’ association, the Mánes Union of Fine Arts, and became one of its journal’s contributors. He created the cover for the 1896 inaugural issue of the Union’s journal “Volné Směry (Free Directions)” and served as the journal’s editor for several years. After graduating, Preisler shared a studio in Malostranská with Karel Špillar, a painter, graphic artist and fellow student under Ženíšek at the School of Applied Arts.

Jan Preisler initially painted in a Neo-Romantic style, a genre that arose in opposition to realism and naturalism, considering those formats to be misleading distortions of reality. As he progressed in his work, Preisler began to use the allegorical approach to symbolism. In the 1890s after studying the works of painters Alfons Mucha and Vojtěch Preissig, he began to experiment with the emerging Art Nouveau style.

Jan Preisler infused his paintings with poetic solitude and dreamlike mystery. The setting of a figure in a landscape is a typical feature of his paintings. In his development of the figure, Preisler’s understanding of that symbol changed from etheric levitating figures with symbolistic poses to their realistic rendering. This change in figural rendering was principally evidenced in the works from his loose “Black Lakes” series. Compact in content, those paintings build their stories from all the individual motifs.

In 1902, Preisler and his artist friend Antonin Gudechek traveled to Italy. In Vienna, he met French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Preisler was the organizer of the 1905 Prague Mánes Society exhibition of Edvard Munch’s works; Preisler designed the poster for this exhibition. He traveled to Paris in 1906, where attended a major retrospective of Paul Gauguin’s work at the Salon d’Automne.

In 1903, Jan Preisler became the teacher of nude painting at Prague’s School of Applied Arts and, later in 1913, was designated Professor of Painting at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts. In the period between 1908 and 1918, Preisler was given several public commissions for decorative work at prominent buildings in Prague. Among these were the Palacky Room in the Municipal House of Prague, and mural work for the dining hall of the District House (now Grand Hotel) at Hradec Králové.

Jan Preisler died of pneumonia in April of 1918. He was survived by his wife of four years, Božena Pallas Preisler, and his two children. Preisler was interred in the family vault in Prague.

Notes: In Preisler’s 1904 “Black Lake”, a pale horse stands with a solitary nude figure at the edge of an ominous, dark pool; the scene is an allegory of introspection, nature, and the unconscious. Preisler’s subdued palette and lyrical composition evoke myth and reverie, rooted in both Art Nouveau elegance and Symbolist philosophy. This enigmatic “Black Lake” remains one of Preisler’s most haunting and iconic works.

Top Insert Image: Jan Preisler, “Self Portrait with Cigarette”, circa 1900, Oil on Linen, 50 x 45 cm, Galerie Kodl, Prague

Second Insert Image: Jan Preisler, “Riders in the Wood”, 1904, Pastel on Paper, 36 x 51 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Jan Preisler, “Portrait of the Artist’s Mother”, Date Unknown, Oil on Board, 39.4 x 33 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Jan Preisler, “Study for Young Beggar”, Date Unknown, Black Pencil and White Chalk on Paper, 28 x 31.5 cm, Private Collection

Jenö Paizs Goebel

The Artwork of Jenö Paizs Goebel

Born at Budapest in June of 1896, Jenö Paizs Goebel was a Hungarian painter, a prominent representative of modern painting in the first half of the twentieth-century. Influenced by both Post-Impressionism and Surrealism, his works primarily contain lyrical abstraction, emotionally charged color, and a natural perspective.

Born Gőbel Jenő Dezső Gyula, Jenö Paizs Goebel was the son of Hungarian silk painter Mihály Gőbel and Tekla Piroska Liebmann. Beginning in 1915, he initially studied at the glass painting department of the Hungarian Royal National School of Arts and Crafts. Goebel continued his studies at Budapest’s Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1924 under realist painter Tivadar Zemplényi and István Réti, plein-air painter and co-founder of the noted Nagybánya artists’ colony in Romania.

A talented artist in his early career, Goebel received a 1924 Nemes Marcell Scholarship from the Szinyei Pál Merse Society which enabled him to travel. He painted at the Nagybánya artist colony for six months, traveled to Paris where Goebel saw the works of Paul Cezanne and Giorgio de Chirico, and stayed for a period in the French commune of Barbizon where he studied the work of Hungarian Impressionist landscape painter László Paál. In 1925, Goebel was part of a group exhibition held at the Galerie Zodiaque in Paris; his work was also shown in the same year at Budapest’s Ernst Museum.

In 1926, Jenö Paizs Goebel painted in the riverside town of Szentendre and became one of the 1928 co-founders of its Painters Society. During this period in the late 1920s, his work was influenced by the paintings of impressionist László Paál and those of István Szőnyi, a fellow artist from the Nagybánya artist colony. Goebel adopted a painting style that utilized thin, flexible lines and enameled, clean surfaces. Works in this period included the 1926 “Self Portrait Leaning on a Table” and the 1927 “Saint Sebastian”, both now housed in the Hungarian National Gallery. Goebel received a silver medal for the works he exhibited at the 1929 Barcelona World Exhibition.

A significant change occurred in Goebel’s artwork in the early 1930s. The former enameled effect with its contrasting light and shadow was replaced with a decorative, carefully edited style. Now aligned with international Surrealism, he created compositions of myth and magic that contained symbolic elements within metaphysical spaces. The colors and decorative elements of the paintings evoke the techniques Goebel acquired as a glass painter. These dream-realm images, often depicting thick vegetation, can be interpreted as a visual refuge from the rising specter of upcoming war in Europe. Among the works created in this period was Goebel’s best known work, the 1931 “The Golden Age: Self-Portrait with Pigeons”.

After the first half of the 1930s, Jenö Paizs Goebel’s style changed again. The fantastic elements of his former work were absent; his style had become more relaxed with lighter atmospheric effects. Most of his work’s themes were now centered on life in Szentendre where he would live until his death. Simple rural motifs, scenes of local circuses, and self-portraits became the focus of Goebel’s paintings. These cheerful, finely-nuanced works, fashioned with delicate brushstrokes, were shown in a 1943 group exhibition at the local art center, Alkotás Művészház.

Jenö Paizs Goebel died at the age of forty-eight in Budapest on the twenty-third of November in 1944. Retrospectives of his work have been held over the years at the Budapest Art Gallery, the Hungarian National Gallery, the Szentendre Art Gallery, the Ferenczy Museum, and the Budapest History Museum. Goebel’s work can be found in many private collections and such public collections as the Janus Pannonius Museum, Hungarian National Gallery and the Ferenczy Museum.

Notes: Fine Arts in Hungary has a short article on Jenö Paizs Goebel’s “The Golden Age” on its website: https://www.hung-art.hu/frames-e.html?/english/p/paizs_go/muvek/paizsg07.html

Top Insert Image: Jenö Paizs Goebel, “Self Portrait”, 1938, Oil, Tempera on Wood, 44 x 31.5 cm, Private Collection

Second Insert Image: Jenö Paizs Goebel, “Parisian Studio Still Life with Mirror”, 1945, Watercolor on Paper, 60 x 45 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Jenö Paizs Goebel, “In the Garden”, 1943, Oil on Wood, 75.5 x 67 cm, Private Collection

Artur Grucela

The Paintings of Artur Grucela

Born in 1987, Artur Grucela is a Polish figurative painter whose naturalistic, idyllic landscapes are populated by archetypical, often solitary, male figures caught in moments of introspection. His work explores the primal relationship of man to nature, as well as humanity’s lack of control over natural forces.

Raised in a small town in southern Poland, Grucela began drawing from an early age and became interested in painting during hie elementary school years. Primarily educated outside academic art institutions, Grucela frequently integrates themes from myths, allegories, and biblical symbolism into his work; he also draws upon motifs from art history, film noir productions, and classic literature.

Artur Grucela’s work, executed in either oils or acrylics on canvas, is inspired by the works of such artists as Early Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli; English etcher and painter William Blake: French illustrator and printmaker Gustave Dorè: Swiss Symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin; and Franz von Stuck, a German printmaker and painter of ancient mythology.

Grucela has exhibited twice with Miligram, a cooperative of young artists in Wroclaw, the first being the city’s 2009 “Represent” exhibition and, in the following year, the “Dzika Banda (Wild Bunch)” exhibition held at Warsaw. After the Miligram group disbanded, he began showing his work through POCO, the Pop & Contemporary Art Museum, founded in Tallinn by Estonian tech pioneer Linnar Viik.

Artur Grucela has exhibited in POCO’s many group exhibitions and country art fairs, including the 2012 inaugural show at the POCO gallery in Wroclaw and the Agora Cultural Center of Wroclaw in 2013. His paintings were included in the 2024 group show “Mystery Keepers” at Warsaw’s Sotto 63 Gallery and at the 2025 group show “Ethereal” at the Edji Gallery in Brussels.

Grucela currently lives and works in Piwniczna-Zdrój, a popular destination in the Western Carpathian mountain range of southern Poland. His work is contained in many private collections in Poland, Switzerland and the United States. A photo-stream collection of Artur Grucela’s work can be found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/arturgrucela/

Second Insert Image: Artur Grucela, “Moonlight”, 2025, Oil on Canvas, 120 x 90 cm

Bottom Insert Image: Artur Grucela, “In the Eyes of Nature”, 2025, Oil on Canvas, 120 x 90 cm

José Moreno Carbonero

José Moreno Carbonero, “Gladiators After the Fight”, circa 1882, Oil on Canvas, 230 x 300 cm, Museo de Málaga, Museo de Prado Collection

Born at Málaga in March of 1858, José Moreno Carbonero was a Spanish decorator and painter, one of the last history painters of the nineteenth-century. A celebrated portraitist of Madrid’s upper classes, he was influenced by Spanish Romantic painter Mariano Fortuny, known for his historical and orientalist themed works.

The son of a carpenter, José Carbonero enrolled in Málaga’s School of Fine Arts in 1868 and also studied under Bernardo Ferrándiz Bádenes, a costumbrista painter and the Chair of Color and Composition at the Escuela de Bella Artes de San Telmo. While at Ferrándiz’s studio, Carbonero was introduced to history painting and his teacher’s revolutionary views of commitment to freedom, independence and nonconformity. In 1872 at the age of fourteen, he was awarded a gold medal at the Exhibition of the Lyceum of Málaga.

Carbonero visited Morocco in 1873 where, influenced by Mariano Fortuny’s portraits and exotic, orientalist court scenes, he began to create African-themed paintings. After receiving a scholarship from the Málaga government, he traveled to Paris and joined the studio of painter and sculptor Jean-Léon Gérôme, one of the three most successful artists of the Second French Empire. Carbonero became acquainted with art dealer/publisher Adolphe Goupil, who introduced him to the commercial popularity of small genre paintings known as tableautins, a form of art that afforded great success.

After a study trip to Rome, Moreno Carbonero won a gold medal at Madrid’s 1881 National Exhibition of Fine Arts for his portrait “El Príncipe don Carlos de Viana”, now in the Prado Museum. Three years later, he won a second gold medal at the National Exhibition for his 1884 large-scale scene “La Conversión del Duque de Gandia”, which he painted during his time in Rome. Recognized for his ability, Carbonero received commissions from several official institutions including the Spanish Senate and the country of Argentina.

For the Conference Hall of the Spanish Senate, Carbonero created the 1888 “Entrada de Roger de Flor en Constantinopla”, a large-scale (350 x 550 cm) depiction of the Italian mercenary Roger de Flor and his troops entering Constantinople to relieve the Emperor from Turkish occupation. For this work, Carbonero did extensive research in Paris on the architecture, decoration and clothes of the Byzantine Empire, and created dozens of staging models and small paintings of individual warriors.

Moreno Carbonero received the highest award at the 1888 Vatican Exposition and participated in the International Exhibitions held in Munich and Vienna. Other awards included a silver medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, a gold medal at the 1890 Budapest International Exposition, an honorary degree at the 1891 Berlin Universal Exposition, and the only gold medal at the 1893 World’ Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

In 1910, Moreno Carbonero received a commission from King Alfonso XIII of Spain for a commemorative painting to be given to the city of Buenos Aires to mark the city’s one-hundredth anniversary of the Argentine War of Independence. For this work, Carbonero proposed that the painting, “The Founding of Buenos Aires”, combine three symbolic representations for religion, justice and conquest. Its scene refers historically to the second (and permanent) founding of Buenos Aires on the Rio de la Plata, The 400 x 250 cm work depicts Juan de Garay with his sixty-three soldiers taking possession of the area on behalf of King Felipe II of Spain on the eleventh of June in 1580.

As a history painter, Carbonero was eclectic in his style and, due to his early success at creating small-scale genre paintings, excelled in drawing and clean brushwork. He was adamant about the historical accuracy of his paintings to the extent of repainting in 1924 some sections of his finished 1909 “The Founding of Buenos Aires” due to factual errors in its composition. In his scenes of large historical events, Carbonero put extra focus on portraying the reactions and feelings of the event’s participants..

Beginning in 1892 until his death, José Moreno Carbonero was an Academician and Professor of Live Drawing at Madrid’s Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. He died in Madrid at the age of eighty-two in April of 1942 and was buried in the city’s San Miguel Cemetery. His work is in many private and public collections; the collection of Málaga’s Museo de Belles Artes holds thirty works by Carbonero.

Notes: Costumbrista painting was a localized branch of genre painting in Spain that had a realistic focus on precise representation of particular times and places, It captured the social and/or aesthetic behavior that characterized a human group belonging to a specific time, place, and culture, without any particular analysis of the depicted social scene. Artists who worked in this genre included Vincente Castell, José Villegas, Antonio Cabral Bejarano, and Leandro Ramón Garrido.

José Moreno Carbonero’s 1882 “Gladiadores Después del Combate (Gladiators After the Fight)” was submitted by the artist during his first year as a scholarship recipient in Rome. It was displayed in the Scholarship Recipients’ Section of the 1884 National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Rome. The inscription on the intrados of the pillar referred to the profession of the figures depicted in the scene and translated as follows: “The gladiatorial company of the aedile A. Suetius Certus will fight in Pompeii on May 31. There will be hunting and awnings.”

Top Insert Image: Christian Franzen, “José Moreno Carbonero”, 1898, December 15, 1898 Issue, “La Illustración Española y Americana”, Madrid, Spain

Second Insert Image: José Moreno Carbonero, “Portrait of H.R.H. King Alfonso XIII de Borbón”, 1927, Oil on Canvas, 74 x50 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: José Moreno Carbonero, “Bebiendo en la Fuente (Drinking from the Fountain, Date Unknown, Oil on Canvas, 31.5 x 55.5 cm, Private Collection

Fourth Insert Image: José Moreno Carbonero, “El Fumador de Kif”, 1890s, Oil on Canvas, 126 x 166 cm, Private Colllection

Bottom Insert Image: José Moreno Carbonero, “Study of a Guarani Man, Argentina”, 1922, Oil on Canvas, 32 x 26 cm, Private Collection

Henry Ernest Schnakenberg

Henry Ernest Schnakenberg, “Indians Trading with the Half Moon”, 1941, One of Four Fresco Murals, Post Office Fort Lee, NewJersey

Born at New Brighton, Staten Island, New York in September of 1892, Henry Ernest Schnakenberg was an American realist painter and etcher known primarily for his renderings of New York’s Central Park and other cityscapes. He began his art studies with evening classes at the Arts Student League in 1913. Schnakenberg’s experience of attending the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art at the city’s 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue, known now as the Armory Show, solidified his desire to be an artist. After that exposure, he began full-time classes at the League, that continued as three years of study under painter and printmaker Kenneth Hayes Miller.

After exhibiting two works at the Society of Independent Artists, Schnakenberg enlisted in the Army Medical Corps in 1917 at America’s entry into World War I. Discharged in 1919, he quickly returned to art, exhibiting alongside Joseph Stella at the Whitney Studio Club. Beginning in 1923, Schnakenberg taught for two years at the Art Students League and, later, became the League’s president in 1932. In addition to his teaching, he wrote essays and reviews throughout his career for art magazines.

Henry Schnakenberg regularly exhibited his work at the Society of Independent Artists as well as museum invitationals, including those at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He participated in the Carnegie International from 1920 to 1949 and exhibited alongside his mentor Kenneth Miller at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Beginning in 1932, Schnakenberg was represented by New York’s C.W. Kraushaar Galleries.

After completing mural commissions from the Treasury Department’s section of Fine Arts for post offices in Amsterdam, New York and Fort Lee, New Jersey, Schnakenberg relocated to Newtown, Connecticut. He would travel from there to paint the summer landscapes of Vermont and New England farmlands. A member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Henry Ernest Schnakenberg died at the age of seventy-eight in October of 1970 at Newtown. His body in interred at the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp, New York.

Bottom Insert Image: Henry Ernest Schnakenberg, “Air Plants, Puerto Rico”, 1927, Oil on Canvas, 77.2 x 92.1 cm, Whitney Museum of American Art, new York

Bruno Vekemans

The Artwork of Bruno Vekemans

Born in 1952 at Berchem, a southern district of Antwerp, Bruno Vekemans was a Belgian painter, draftsman and etcher. Considered a post-modernist, he was primarily concerned with figurative work which included portraits. Vekemans also created urban landscapes and anecdotal scenes with characters.

As a child and later a teenager, Bruno Vekemans was constantly engaged in drawing and painting. He enrolled at the Technicum de Londenstraat, an industrial arts and design school, where he took several courses in decoration. Vekemans also had some basic training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berchem. His skill at drawing was heavily influenced by his many visits to Antwerp’s Museum of Fine Arts where he studied the works of the Flemish masters as well as the early works of expressionist painter James Ensor.

Vekemans was, however, basically self-taught; his own unique strong and mysterious style was developed after years of experimentation with shape and color. His painting underwent various modifications before its dramatic resolution in the 1990s. Vekemans started his experiments with different techniques in 1971, using collages, comics, and églomisé, the application of a design and gilding on the rear face of glass. He often started his work with various photos or images from magazines, to which he added, combined or eliminated elements.

In 1988, Bruno Vekemans focused on linear works, most of which were applications of gouache on patterned paper. He later replaced the patterned paper with seventeenth-century paper and also began experiments with oil paints on canvas. Vekemans simplified the image and used chiaroscuro to create different lighting effects. He used vibrant, intense colors, often transparent with different levels of opacity in tones tinged with blues, browns and blacks. Throughout his paintings, collages and drawings, Vekemans maintained an aura of solitude and mystery in both his portraits and cityscapes.

Vekemans frequently exhibited in the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, Austria, France, Australia and the United States. His first verified exhibition was at Amsterdam’s Jaski Art Gallery in 2006. An important step in Vekemans’s career was his 2015 exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro. Other notable exhibitions were retrospectives at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires and Havana’s Museo Nacional de Belas Artes de Cuba where he exhibited his thematic series on Cuba. A posthumous retrospective of his work, “Bruno Vekemans: Zelfportrettten”, was held in 2023 at Antwerp’s Galerie Verbeeck-Van Dyck.

Bruno Vekemans passed away on the twenty-second of July in 2019, a week before his sixty-seventh birthday. In 2020, he was posthumously named an honorary citizen of the Antwerp municipality of Brasschaat.

Second Insert Image: Bruno Vekemans, “Man Met Koffer (Man with Suitcase)”, Date Unknown, Gouache on Paper, 79 x 57 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Bruno Vekemans, “Tango Dancer”, 1895, Gouache on Patterned Paper, 92 x 78 cm, Private Collection

Ádám Mányoki

Ádám Mányoki, “Self Portrait”, circa 1711, Oil on Canvas, 87 x 61.5 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

Born at the village of Szokolya in 1673, Ádám Mányoki was an Hungarian portraitist, one of the most prominent figures of Hungarian Baroque art. His work is known for its refined style and accomplished depiction of human emotion.

Born into the family of a rural Protestant preacher, Ádám Mányoki’s early life was one of hardship as the family struggled financially. Recognizing the family’s situation and Mányoki’s artistic talent, a German staff officer named Dölfer took the responsibility for Mányoki’s upbringing and education in Hamburg and Lüneburg. Exposed to the classical ideas of beauty and proportion, Mányoki developed his skills under court painter Andreas Scheits in Hamburg and painter Nicolas de Largillière of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. Both of these artists were acclaimed for their innovation within the Baroque tradition.

Mányoki’s formal education ended with a journey to Amsterdam where the Age of Enlightenment was flourishing. The Dutch Republic had a vibrant art scene with new ideas, literary salons, coffeehouses, and experiments with new techniques in the arts. Mányoki’s exposure to this atmosphere solidified his commitment to the art of portraiture as a means to capture the subtleties of human psychology. In 1703, he decided to relocate to Berlin where he secured patronage from King Frederick William I and established himself as a prominent member of the Prussian cultural elite. Mányoki painted several portraits of royal family members that were celebrated for their precision and sense of dignity.

After establishing his reputation in Germany, Ádám Mányoki traveled extensively in Europe seekings new opportunities. He traveled to both Prague and Vienna where he received commissions from Emperor Charles VI, ruler of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy, and Empress Maria Theresa, who ascended to the throne after Charles VI’s death. Mányoki’s travels expanded his knowledge of both European history and the diverse approaches to painting. Between 1724 and 1731, he remained in Hungary where he created portraits of the Hungarian nobility and members of the Podmanitzky family, an influential lineage that played a key role throughout Hungary’s history.

After leaving Hungary, Mányoki resided in Dresden and Leipzig. He received royal patronage from Augustus III, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and continued to paint works that were in keeping with the style of that era. Due to unresolved salary disputes, Mányoki resigned his position as court painter in 1753, an act which marked the end of his career. Ádám Mányoki died peacefully in Dresden, at the age of eighty-four, in August of 1757.

Notes: Ádám Mányoki painted his 1711 “Self Portrait” while he was residing in Berlin. Influences from his studies of seventeenth-century Dutch and Germany painting can be seen in its composition. Mányoki used a technique of self-portraiture that had been popular since Rembrandt; a soft velvet hat with an upturned rim that casts a warm, brown shadow over the upper half of the face. The choice of colors and some of the portrait’s formal details can be traced to the work of the French portraitist to the Prussian court, Antoine Pesne. In the portrait, the posture of the figure and the shirt’s loose front opening may have been inspired by Mányoki seeing German Baroque artist Philip Kilian’s engraving of landscape painter Johann Heinrich Roos’s self-portrait.

Originally owned by Ádám Mányoki, the painting is documented in the Galerie Schleißheim from 1775. It was bought by the Association of Friends of the Art Museums, and from 1931 was on permanent deposit in museums with which the Friends were associated. From 1974 it has been in the Hungarian National Gallery.

Top Insert Image: Ádám Mányoki, “Portrait of János Podmaniczky”, 1724, Oil on Canvas, 91 x 76 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

Second Insert Image: Ádám Mányoki, “Porträt einer Hofdame König August de Starken (Portrait of a Lady-in-Waiting to King Augustus III, the Strong)”, circa 1715, Oil on Canvas, 64 x 62 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Ádám Mányoki, “Portrait of Prince Ference Rákózci II”, 1712, Oil on Canvas, 75.5 x 67.5 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

Aage Storstein

The Paintings of Aage Storstein

Born at the historic city of Stavanger in July of 1900, Aage Storstein was a Norwegian painter, draftsman and graphic artist who focused his studies on historical art as well as his own contemporary style. Although particularly interested in early Renaissance art, Storstein found inspiration in the work and unique style of Picasso.

Although he lived the majority of his life in Norway, Aage Storstein traveled to Paris to study during the 1920s. He studied at Académie Ranson, the private art school founded by painter Paul Ranson in 1908; the Académie de la Grande Chaumière which was free from the strict Academic rules of painting; and the Académie Colarossi, a school founded as an alternative to the government-sanctioned, more conservative École des Beaux Arts. In 1926, Storstein studied under Norwegian painters Henrik Sørenson and Per Lasson Krohg, both of whom had been students of Henri Matisse.

In Paris, Storstein was greatly influenced by the modernist paintings of that period and began his own distinctive style of Cubism. Although best know for his figurative compositions, Storstein’s landscapes were always central to his art. His landscapes, a blend of nature with human structure, were painted with analytical precision, simplified forms, and soft colors.

Aage Storstein’s first exhibition was held at the 1924 Høstutstillingen (Autumn Exhibition) in Oslo, Norway. the first of twelve exhibitions at this venue in his lifetime. In 1937, his work was exhibited at the International Exhibition in Paris, a significant event in which forty-four countries participated. Storstein won the 1938 competition for the design of the West Gallery of the Oslo City Hall. For this site, he created a series of Cubist murals that depicted Norwegian life and the country’s history and mythology.

Beginning in 1946, he taught at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts where he later became head professor. Among Storstein’s students were such artists as modernist abstractionist Gunnar S. Gundersen, painter Halvdan Ljøsne, and painter/photographer Rolf Aamot, known for his electronic tonal images and film work.

In 1961, Aage Storstein was given a retrospective exhibition of his work at Norway’s largest gallery, Kunstnernes Hus, that contained works drawn from both public and private collections. Aage Storstein died in Norway in May of 1983 at the age of eighty-two. His work is in many private collections as well as the collections of the Oslo National Gallery and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Top Insert Image: Aage Storstein, “Self Portrait”, 1931, Oil Cardboard and Paper on Panel, 21 x 17 cm, Private Collection

Second Insert Image: Aage Storstein, “Human Rights”, 1949, Mural Fresco, Detail, Oslo City Hall

Bottom Insert Image: Aage Storstein, “Mannshode (Man’s Head)”, Date Unknown, Oil on Plate, 30.5 x 23.5 cm, Private Collection

Aleksei Ivanovich Borodin

Aleksei Ivanovich Borodin, “Tractor Drivers”, 1965-1980, Oil on Board, 95.3 x 132.1 cm, Private Collection

Born at Kirilovka, Samara Region in January of 1915, Aleksei Ivanovich Borodin was a Russian painter known for his figurative work and scenes of Russian rural life. After being orphaned during the Russian Civil War, he was placed in the care of a military educational orphanage for boys that trained them for military service.

After leaving the orphanage, Borodin entered Saratov Art and Industry High School and graduated in 1936 with a teacher’s diploma in painting and drawing. He also briefly studied under Russian Post-Impressionist painter Igor Grabar noted for his distinctive style of painting that bordered on Pointillism.

During World War II, Borodin was wounded during his service with an armored division of the Red Army. After the war, he returned to Saratov where he taught at his alma mater until the 1960s. Borodin relocated to Stalingrad, now Volgograd, where he was given a teaching position.

A member of the Russian Union of Artists since 1939, Aleksei Borodin participated in local, regional, Republican and Union-sponsored exhibitions from the early 1950s through the 1980s. Honored for his work, he was given a solo retrospective in 1986 at the Volgograd Art Museum, which now houses his most famous painting, the 1964 “Volgograd Farmers”.

Aleksei Ivanovich Borodin died in Volgograd at the age of eighty-nine in 2004. His paintings are in numerous private collections around the world. The majority of his oeuvre, however, is in the Saratov Art Museum, Volgograd Art Museum, and the Museum of Defense in Volgograd.

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Happy Holidays to All 2025 !

Konstantin Gorbatov, “A Winter Landscape”, 1896-1945, Pencil and Gouache on Paper Laid Down on Board, 36.1 x 48.2 cm, Private Collection

I would like to wish a Happy Holiday and a Great New Year to all my site’s visitors and subscribers, as well as a heart-felt thank-you to those whose donations supported this site’s cost and research. Thank you for all your comments, suggestions and needed article corrections. If you have not already subscribed to this site, please do so. Have a great holiday season and a year of good health, new friendships and exciting adventures! Chas (Ultrawolves)

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Born at the Volga River town of Stavropol (now Tolyatti) in May of 1876, Konstantin Ivanovich Gorbatov was a Russian Post-Impressionist painter known for his vibrant landscapes. Interested in art at an early age, he sketched the churches, houses and river landscapes of his hometown. In the 1890s, Gorbatov trained with the local artists in Samara and later relocated to Riga in 1896.

While studying civil engineering in Riga, Gorbatov continued his art training with evening classes. In 1904, he relocated to St. Petersburg and initially enrolled at the Baron Stieglitz School for Technical Draftsmanship before transferring to the Imperial Academy of Arts where Gorbatov studied under landscape painters Nikolay Dubovskoy and Alexander Kiselev. He began exhibiting his work in 1908 and was acknowledged for his distinctive style, a fusion of realism and the emerging impressionist style.

Critics praised Konstantin Gorbatov’s celebration of everyday Russian life and the harmony found in every detail of his work. The influence of the French Impressionists can be seen in his loose brushwork and plein-air light effects. Gorbatov drew on the Peredvizhniki (Wanderers) realist tradition while embracing modern impressionism. Thus, his landscapes appealed to those who loved the post-impressionist Russian art and those with a sentimental connections to old Russian locales.

Gorbatov left Russian in 1922, unwilling to adapt to the new Soviet regime, and sought refuge in Italy, eventually settling in Venice. He frequently traveled around Italy and painted local scenes, architecture and seascapes as well as Russian landscapes from memory. Gorbatov moved to Berlin in 1926 where there was a thriving community of Russian émigré artists.During the late 1920s, he began selling and exhibiting his work internationally.

The rise of the Nazi regime in the 1930s led to a decline in interest for Konstantin Gorbatov’s work as it did not align with the austere cultural ideology of Nazi art policies. Still a Soviet citizen, he was forbidden to leave German and soon fell into poverty. Despite the hardship of his life, Gorbatov continued to paint for himself.

After enduring the war years in besieged Berlin, Gorbatov died in May of 1945, shortly after the Allied victory in Europe. His final act, one of generosity to his homeland, was the bequest that all his unsold artwork be given to the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. Many of Gorbatov’s paintings are also housed in the collection of the Moscow Regional Art Museum.

Frank Brangwyn

The Artwork of Sir Frank William Brangwyn

Born at Bruges in May of 1867, Sir Frank William Brangwyn was a Welsh artist, painter, illustrator, watercolorist, printmaker and designer. A prolific artist, he created more than twelve-thousand works including ceramics, stained glass panels and windows, glass tableware, furniture, and both interior and exterior architectural designs.

One of four children born to ecclesiastical architect William Curtis Brangwyn and Eleanor Griffiths, Frank Brangwyn received his primary education at Westminster City School. However, he often played truant, spending time at his father’s workshop and sketching at the South Kensington Museum. Brangwyn later took an apprenticeship with progressive architect and designer Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, a major influence in the Arts and Craft Movement. With a recommendation from Mackmurdo, he was able to enter the workshops of designer William Morris, one of the most significant cultural figures in Victorian England.

After one of his paintings sold at the 1884 Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy, Brangwyn joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and began painting seascapes. Securing a berth on a freighter to Istanbul, he spent 1890 and most of 1891 at sea, visiting Spain, Morocco, South Africa and Zanzibar. Brangwyn created many paintings during these voyages. His 1890 “Funeral at Sea”, a work done with a largely gray palette, was awarded a medal at the 1891 Paris Salon. Brangwyn, while traveling with Scottish orientalist painter Arthur Melville, became particularly influenced by the bright light and colors of the southern countries. He altered his palette towards lighter colors and produced many paintings and drawings in Spain, Morocco, Egypt and Turkey.

In 1895, German-French art dealer Samuel Siegfried Bing commissioned Frank Brangwyn to decorate the exterior of his Parisian art gallery, the Galerie L’Art Nouveau. Pleased with the work, Bing encouraged him to broaden the scope of his art. Brangwyn began creating tapestry and carpet designs, murals, posters and stained-glass designs for Louis Comfort Tiffany. In 1896, he created a series of illustrations for a six-volume reprint of British orientalist Edward William Lane’s translation of “One Thousand and One Nights”. After collaborating with Japanese artist Urushibara Mokuchu on a 1917 series of woodblock prints, Brangwyn met a fellow collector of Asian art, industrial magnate Kojiro Matsukata, who later became his patron.

Although not an official war artist during the First World War, Brangwyn produced more than eighty poster designs during the conflict. The majority of these designs were donated to charities including the Red Cross, the Royal National Institute for the Blind, and the L’Orphelinat des Armées, a charity that supported French orphanages. Brangwyn also produced six lithographs for the Ministry of Information’s 1917 “Britain’s Efforts and Ideals” portfolio to raise money for the war effort. As the chairman of the English Committee for Diksmuide, a Belgian city torn apart by the war, he donated a series of woodcuts to aid in its reconstruction.

Frank Brangwyn became widely known for his mural work and received numerous commissions from both England and the United States. Originally commissioned to paint the altar recess of Saint Aidan’s Church in Leeds, he decided to work in glass mosaic due to the pollution in the air. This work, completed in 1916, covers the entire altar recess with scenes from the life of St. Aidan. Included among Brangwyn’s other mural commissions were the Great Hall of the Worshipful Company of Skinners for the Royal Exchange in London, the Missouri State Capitol Building, the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg, and a mural created specifically for exhibition at the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Brangwyn, in collaboration with muralists Diego Rivera and Josep Maria Sert, decorated the concourse of the RCA Building in New York City.

The most notable of Brangwyn’s mural commissions, due to both its size and its history, was the one requested by Edward Cecil Guinness, First Earl of Iveagh, in 1926. Brangwyn was to paint a pair of large canvases for the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords at Westminster. These canvases were to honor those peers and their family members who died in the First World War. Finished after the death of Edward Guinness, the life-size battle scenes were found by the House of Lords to be too grim and, thus, they refused the work. In 1928, the Lords offered a second commission, a series of sixteen large works which became known as the British Empire Panels. This series, completed in 1933, was viewed by the Lords who, considering them too colorful and lively for the proposed location, again refused the work.The sixteen canvas murals were later purchased in the following year by the Swansea City Council who installed them in the city’s Brangwyn Hall.

Frank Brangwyn became increasingly pessimistic after the House of Lords twice refused his work. During the 1930s, he began to dispose of his possessions, donating many of his and other artworks to museums in Britain and Europe, including the British Museum and the William Morris Gallery. In 1936, Brangwyn presented over four hundred works to the Arents House Museum in Bruges, Belgium. The two 1926 life-size battle scenes were included with the group of gifts he donated to the National Museum Wales between 1929 and 1935.

In 1944, Brangwyn, now recovered from his depression, secured Pre-Raphaelite illustrator Frederic Shields’s designs for architect Herbert Horne’s Chapel of the Ascension in London. This was an important achievement as the chapel was completely destroyed in 1940 during the bombing of London. One of Brangwyn’s last works was a 1950 series of illustrations for his friend Herbet Julyan’s book “Sixty Years of Yachts” published by London’s Hutchinson & Company. Frank William Brangwyn lived in his final years as a recluse in East Sussex until his death in June of 1956. His body was interred at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green.

Among Sir Frank William Brangwyn’s many awards and honors were the 1902 Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; the Gold Medal of Venice and the Grand Prix of Milan, both in 1906; the 1911 Chevalier of the Order of the Crown of Italy; the 1919 Commander and Cross of the Order of Leopold I of Belgium; and the 1932 Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts. Brangwyn was awarded the title of Knight Bachelor, Great Britain in 1941.

Notes: The definitive Frank Brangwyn website is located at: https://frankbrangwyn.org

Sir Frank William Brangwyn was elected a full Royal Academician of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1910. The Royal Academy of Arts has a biography and a collection of his works at its website: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/frank-brangwyn-ra

An extensive biographical article on Frank Brangwyn can be found at the Chris Beetles Gallery website: https://www.chrisbeetles.com/artists/brangwyn-sir-frank-ra-hrsa-rsw-rws-prba-re-hrms-roi-1867-1956.html

A lecture on Frank Brangwyn’s British Empire Panels, written by University of Bristol’s Art History lecturer Dr. Sehra Jumabhoy, can be found at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery site: https://www.glynnvivian.co.uk/brangwyns-british-empire-panels/

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Frank Brangwyn”, circa 1900, Vintage Print

Second Insert Image: Frank Brangwyn, “Study of Artichokes”, Date Unknown, Gouache and Pencil on Paper, 121 x 81 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Frank Brangwyn, “The Tarpit”, Date Unknown, Intaglio Etching on Paper, 65.4 x 73.3 cm, Museum Wales

Fourth Insert Image: Frank Brangwyn, “Bricklayers, Study for Rebuilding Belgium”, 1915, Black and Red Chalk on Buff Paper, 69 x 47 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Frank Brangwyn, “Makeing Sailors, The Gun”, circa 1917, “The Great War, Britain’s Efforts and Ideals” Series, Lithograph on Paper, 47.1 x 37.1 cm, Tate Gallery, London

Gilbert Lewis

The Portraits of Gilbert Lewis

Born at Hampton, Virginia in September of 1945, Gilbert Braddy Lewis was an American artist and art therapist. Over a span of five decades, he created portraits of friends and acquaintances, a collection of work that included an intimate series that represented the gay male experience in Philadelphia’s LBGTQ community.

Gilbert Lewis began his art training at the early age of seven and pursued the arts throughout his teenage years. After relocating to Philadelphia at the age of eighteen, he began studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under such noted painters as Walter Stuempfig, Franklin Watkins, Hobson Pittman, and printmaker and muralist Morris Blackburn. Lewis was committed to his training and became particularly focused on the careful observation and life drawing taught in the curriculum of Thomas Eakins. After completing his certificate program in 1967, Lewis was awarded the eminent Cresson Traveling Scholarship, a two-year scholarship which enabled him to travel to Italy and study the Sienese and Florentine Renaissance artists.

Upon his return to the United States, Lewis enrolled at the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts, where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1974. Lewis received his Masters Creative Arts Therapy degree at Philadelphia’s Hahnemann University in 1978. He obtained a position as art therapist at the Manchester House Nursing Center in Medea, Pennsylvania where he worked from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The animated qualities in Lewis’s portraits of the seniors with whom he worked is evidence of the warm relationships he established with the residents.

Fascinated by youth and aging, Gilbert Lewis’s work focused on the beginning and the end of adulthood. While working at Manchester House during the day, he was creating gouache, watercolor, charcoal and graphite portraits of young men in the city at night. These portraits express Lewis’s attentiveness to convey the wide eyed awkwardness of those young men who sought both guidance and trust in their artistic relationship with him. Each sitter was encouraged to dress and pose themselves in a way that they would feel most comfortable. Frequent conversations were normal between artist and sitter; many of his models would bring their own music choices to the studio.

Lewis painted models every night from Monday to Friday. His models, often tall and slender, were usually portrayed directly looking at the viewer with a slightly awkward vulnerability. Using a soft color palette, Lewis would sometimes paint his figures against solidly-colored backgrounds. Not overly concerned with realism, Lewis was drawn towards the ethnographic approach to the detail and the sense of longing found in American frontier painter George Catlin’s depictions of the indigenous peoples on the Great Plains of the 1830s.

Gilbert Lewis taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art’s certificate and continuing education programs. He also supported himself throughout his entire career by working at Philadelphia’s art supply stores, including Blick Art Materials, South Street Art Supply, and Pearl Art and Craft Supply. Gilbert Lewis died at the age of seventy-eight on the seventh of December in 2023 at the Belvedere nursing home in Chester, Pennsylvania, from complications caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

Gilbert Lewis’s first solo exhibition was at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art’s Peale House Gallery in 1981. He had numerous solo exhibitions in Philadelphia, among which were the Rosenfeld and Noel Butcher galleries. His largest exhibition, “Becoming Men: Portrait Paintings by Gilbert Lewis”, was presented in 2004 at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York. Lewis’s work can be found in the permanent collections at Philadelphia’s Woodmere Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, and the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey.

“One of my motivations in painting has been to celebrate the beginning of adulthood for the young and the final period of life for the old,” Gilbert observes. “What struck me is that both young men and the old are ignored by society. Despite our ostensible focus on youth, young men are in a sort of nether world, no longer teenagers and yet not full adults. They’re in transition with no established identify and no real place in society.” —Gilbert Lewis

Notes: The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art has a short article written by Christian Bain entitled “Becoming Men: Portrait Paintings by Gilbert Lewis” in which Lewis discusses his work process and motivations for painting: https://leslielohman.org/exhibitions/becoming-men-portrait-paintings-by-gilbert-lewis

The WilliamWay LBGT Community Center in Philadelphia has a collection of paintings by Gilbert Lewis on its site located at: https://www.waygay.org/gilbert-lewis-1

Anthony Rullo was a portrait model who posed at least sixty times for Gilbert Lewis between 1986 and 1996. Rullo’s memories of Lewis and his mentorship are contained in a Visual Arts article by Peter Crimmins for Philadelphia’s WHYY newsletter: https://whyy.org/articles/gilbert-lewis-remembered-as-artist-mentor-to-phillys-gay-80s/

Second Insert Image: Gilbert Lewis, “Nude- Composition in Red and Green”, January 1985, Gouache on Board, 111.8 x 76.2 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Gilbert Lewis, “Seated Man with Shell”, circa 2020, Pastel on Paper, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Gilbert Lewis, Untitled (Young Man Standing with Legs Spread), 1987, Gouache on Paper, 76.2 x 55.9 cm, Private Collection

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama, Untitled, circa 1970, Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas, 60 x 50.4 cm, Private Collection

Born at Matsumato, Nagano in March of 1929, Yayoi Kusama (草間彌生) is a Japanese contemporary artist whose work is based in conceptual art expressed primarily through sculpture and installations. She is actively engaged in painting, performance art, video art, fashion, and writing both poetry and fiction.

Kusama received training for a year at the Kyoto City University of Arts in the traditional Japanese painting style known as nihonga ( 日本画 ), an art form that typically uses mineral pigments and occasionally ink with other organic pigments on paper or silk. She was active in the New York City avant-garde scene throughout the 1960s, organizing “happenings” and experimenting with her series of “Mirror/Infinity” installations.

In 1969, Yayoi Kusama founded Kusama Enterprises, a commercial outlet selling clothing, bags, and even cars. These products feature her singular aesthetic, characterized by her liberal use of polka dots and dense, repeating patterns to create a sense of infinity. In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan. Two years later, seeking treatment for her obsessive-compulsive neurosis, she entered a facility where she lives and works to this day.

Kusama continues to produce paintings and sculpture, and, in the 1980s, added poetry and fiction to her range of creative pursuits. She exhibited at the Japanese pavilion of the 1993 Venice Biennale. Kusama’s dazzling mirrored pavilion room was filled with small pumpkin sculptures. Eventually, she produced a huge, yellow pumpkin sculpture with an optical pattern of black spots, for her a representation of an alter-ego or self-portrait.

In 2017, a fifty-year retrospective of Kusama’s work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. That same year the Yayoi Kusama Museum was inaugurated in Tokyo. Other major retrospectives of her work have been held at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in 1998, the Whitney Museum in 2012, and London’s Tate Modern in 2012.

“The machinery of the sky that confounds us on earth with endless transformations of clouds in the light of dawn does not compare to the extraordinary tenacity of human beings, the way of human life, the presentiment of approaching death, the existence of love, the brilliant coruscations of light and the dark scars of our lives, to say nothing of the incomprehensible form of the cosmos and the overwhelming mysteries of space, time, distance.”

—Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell

The Paintings of Francis Cadell

Born at Edinburgh in April of 1885, Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell was a Scottish painter and watercolorist known for his portraits, central Edinburgh house interiors, and landscapes painted at Iona, Scotland’s west-coastal island. He was one of four Scottish Colourists, painters whose Post-Impressionist work had a formative influence on contemporary Scottish art and culture.

The son of wealthy surgeon Dr. Francis Cadell and Mary Hamilton Boileau, Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell was raised on Edinburgh’s prestigious Moray Estate and privately tutored at the Edinburgh Academy. At the age of sixteen, he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris where he became acquainted with the city’s early-Fauvist painters, most notably Henri Matisse. Between 1902 and 1905, Cadell alternated his residency between Paris and Edinburgh as he undertook a professional career.

In 1907, Cadell studied at Munich’s Akademie der Bildender Künste, one of the oldest art academies in Germany, before returning to Scotland in 1908. Between the deaths of his mother and his terminally ill father, he had his first solo exhibition at Edinburgh’s Doig, Wilson and Wheatley’s Gallery in 1908 where he sold thirty paintings. With an inheritance from his father’s death, Cadell secured a studio on George Street in central Edinburgh in 1909. It was at this time that he met painter Samual John Peploe, who became his life-long friend and a fellow Scottish Colourist.

With financing from old schoolfriend and now patron Patrick Ford, Francis Cadell undertook a painting excursion to Venice in 1910. This inspiring experience gave him more confidence in his use of bright colors and loosened his approach to painting. The work from this trip, however, sold poorly which resulted in the undermining of Cadell’s trust in gallery dealers. From 1911 to 1927, he sold his work only privately, with Glasgow art dealer Alexander Reid purchasing many of his works. After the declaration of war in 1914, Cadell passed his medical tests and joined the 9th Battalion of The Royal Scots in 1915 with whom he served on the French frontlines. Wounded twice, Cadell was discharged in 1919 and was awarded the General Service and Victory medals.

After his discharge from military service, Cadell spent much of his adult life in Scotland, painting in Edinburgh during the spring and autumn, on Iona during the summer, and usually resting indoors during the winter. He closely collaborated with his friend Samuel Peploe, often painting together on Iona, and developed an interest in the Art Deco movement. Cadell began to paint still lifes and figure studies, tightly-cropped compositions usually presented at an angle, and increasingly brilliantly colored interior scenes.

From the early to mid-1920s, Francis Cadell restrained the use of perspective and shadow in his still lifes. These post-war images were characterized by their vivid, acidic colors and strict composition. Using flat areas of color and disregarding shadows, Cadell stylized the forms to such an extent that it could be seen as a two-dimensional pattern within a strictly limited framework. He later developed a style in which black remained the dominant color and was increasingly used to outline features.

Cadell served from 1923 to 1936 as a Council member of the influential Edinburgh architecture, conservation and planning organization, the Cockburn Association also known as the Edinburgh Civic Trust. He died from cancer at the age of fifty-four in December of 1937 and was interred with his family in Dean Cemetery, a historically important Victorian cemetery west of Edinburgh’s city center. Cadell’s paintings and watercolors are housed in many private collections and are on public display in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Notes: ART UK has a 2020 article by modern art curator and auction house specialist Alice Strang, entitled “The Making of a Scottish Colourist: Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell”, on its site: https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-making-of-a-scottish-colourist-francis-campbell-boileau-cadell

The Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell Organization has a biography and a large collection of the artist’s works on its site: https://francis-campbell-boileau-cadell.org

Top Insert Image: Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, “Self Portrait”, Date Unknown, Black Chalk on Paper, 56 x 38.5 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Second Insert Image: Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, “Self Portrait”, circa 1914, Oil on Canvas, 113.1 x 86.8 cm, National Galleries of Scotland

Bottom Insert Image: Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, “Life Study”, Date Unknown, Conte on Paper, 34.3 x 29.2 cm, Private Collection

Nicolas Monjo

The Paintings of Nicolas Monjo

Born at the Nouvelle-Aquitaine department of Lot-et-Garonne in 1975, Nicolas Monjo is a French self-taught contemporary painter. The central element of his work is the tenuous condition of humanity in a world that is both complex and often oppressive. To illustrate this fragility, Monjo presents the human figure enclosed, often crushed with others, inside the restrictive edges of the canvas.

Nicolas Monjo began painting at the age of twenty and, through study and technique, has developed his own unique style. His images are inspired by the complexities and sometimes tumultuous nature of human relationships, the struggles to overcome circumstances, and the power dynamics of a surrounding society.

Monjo’s vivid imagery features a tensive contrast between its harsh subject matter and the artistry of each painting’s composition. In an extremely personal way, he presents the fragility of the human condition that is often crushed by the harsh and cold world where the law of the strong prevails. Monjo’s figures are enclosed, both figuratively and literally, within the framework of the canvases they inhabit, a reminder of their inability to extricate themselves from their gloomy daily life.

Nicolas Monjo uses both acrylic and oil paints on his canvases with a preference for the colors gray and blue. Mixtures of oil and acrylic paint on the tablet are used for more marked relief effects. This soft, dark color palette creates a unique atmosphere for his evolving collection of characters. Mixed among these characters are recurring tropes such as rabbit ears, fish, dogs, gaping mouths and sunglasses. Other elements, almost always present in Monjo’s compositions, are the symbol of the heart, guitar, plates, forks and an abandoned glass on the floor. These are all objects that represent Monjo’s personal life.

Nicolas Monjo currently lives and works near the prefecture of Angouleme in the southwestern French department of Charente. His artwork is represented online by Bouillon d’Art at: https://www.bouillondart.com/en/93-monjo-nicolas

Monjo’s work can also be found at the online gallery Artsper located at: https://www.artsper.com/us/contemporary-artists/france/25687/nicolas-monjo

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Nicolas Monjo”, Color Print, Artsper Gallery

Bottom Insert Image: Nicolas Monjo, “Le Conte à Rebours”, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 130 x 97 cm, Private Collection