Biography of Henri Mastisse

Henri Matisse was born on December 31, 1869, as the son of a grain merchant in the Picardy in Le Cateau–Cambrésis, France. He grew up at Bohain-en-Vermandois and studied law in Paris from 1887 to 1888. By 1891, he had abandoned law and started to paint (When Henri Matisse was 21 years old he became seriously ill as he had an acute attack of appendicitis. During the phase of convalescence Matisse started painting and discovered his love for art, which should become his life-long passion. he began to paint after ). In Paris, Matisse studied art for brief periods at the Académie Julian and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts with Gustave Moreau.

In 1901, Matisse exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and met another future leader of the Fauve movement, Maurice de Vlaminck. His first solo show took place at the Galerie Vollard in 1904. Both Leo and Gertrude Stein, as well as Etta and Claribel Cone, began to collect Matisse’s work at that time. Like many avant-garde artists in Paris, Matisse was receptive to a broad range of influences. He was one of the first painters to take an interest in primitive art. Matisse abandoned the palette of the Impressionists and established his characteristic style, with its flat, brilliant color and fluid line. His subjects were primarily women, interiors, and still lifes. In 1913, his work was included in the Armory Show in New York. By 1923, two Russians, Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morosov, had purchased nearly 50 of his paintings. From the early 1920s until 1939, Matisse divided his time primarily between the South of France and Paris. During this period, he worked on paintings, sculptures, lithographs, and etchings, as well as on murals for the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania, designs for tapestries, and set and costume designs for Léonide Massine’s ballet Rouge et noir. While recuperating from two major operations in 1941 and 1942, Matisse concentrated on a technique he had devised earlier: papiers découpés (paper cutouts). Jazz, written and illustrated by Matisse, was published in 1947; the plates are stencil reproductions of paper cutouts.

In 1948, he began the design for the decoration of Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence, which was completed and consecrated in 1951. The same year, a major retrospective of his work was presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and then traveled to Cleveland, Chicago, and San Francisco. In 1952, the Musée Matisse was inaugurated at the artist’s birthplace of Le Cateau–Cambrésis. Matisse continued to make large paper cutouts, the last of which was a design for the rose window at Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York. He died on November 3, 1954, in Nice.

The Master of Colors
After an exhibition of their works in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne the group around Matisse and Andre Derain was ironically and pejoratively dubbed Les Fauves, which literally means The Wild Beasts. His earlier work, especially Luxe, Calme, et Volupte, was very pointilistic as he was very much influenced by Seurat. Matisse became Neo-Impressionistic, using both colors and shapes boldly. From 1905 to 1906 Matisse painted one of his best paintings, The Joy of Life. It is considered to be one of the most important works of Twenty Century art and was bought by the famous art collector Dr. Albert C. Barnes. This painting and the whole Barnes collection was veiled from the public for 72 years. Finally the collection of the Barnes Foundation was opened to the art world again in 1993 and can be visited outside Philadelphia. The American writer Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo were early collectors and supporters of Matisse paintings. Another admirer became Pablo Picasso with whom he exchanged paintings in 1907. After World War I, Matisse had gained a high reputation and was an internationally recognized artist. His later work emphasized the saturation of color and a simplicity of lines. In several works, he exhibits a plasticity of forms that complements his simplistic and saturated use of color. In some of his paintings, he transposed patterns which diminished the sense of space in his work. Matisse was a primary mover of the Fauves and was widely recognized, making various connections with the American community in France. Matisse sculpted in clay, bronze and ceramics as well. He also ran an art academy for three years. Many of his paintings featured views out of windows and partial interiors. In 1908, Matisse published "Notes d'un Peintre" which embodied his personal statement as an artist.In 1917 he left Paris and settled in Nice in the South of France where he remained until the end of his life. In 1925 he was honoured with the French Legion of Honor award.

The Late Years
In 1941 Matisse had an abdominal cancer surgery which had a devastating effect on his health and ability to paint. He was unable to stand upright in front of an easel. The artist therefore turned to another form of artistic ex-pression. He created paper cut-outs in the same vivid, strong colors and daring compositions known from his paintings. He had an assistant and could work lying in bed or sitting comfortably in an arm-chair. Henri Matisse died on November 3, 1954 in Nice as an internationally well known and highly reputable artist. He had continued creating paper cutout works until the day of his death. Pablo Picasso once said about the artist: "All things considered, there is only Matisse".

Henri Matisse Citations
"I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime, which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me."

"In modern art, it is undoubtedly to Cezanne that I owe the most."

"A colorist makes his presence known even in a single charcoal drawing."

"The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction."

Biography of Dennis Loren

Dennis Loren is a well known accomplished graphic designer specializing in music related marketing materials and publication design. He has created album covers, posters, and print ads for Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, Paul McCartney, The Velvet Underground, Rick James and many others.

Dennis was born in Detroit in 1946. After graduating from high school in 1964 he worked full time while attending art classes until he was drafted in 1965. In the spring of 1967 he was briefly stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco. He was discharged there and decided to stay since it was really happening there. that time. Excited by the music scene he decided to form a band with guitarist Joe Toschi called "Mercury Vapor". His musical high point was jamming with BB King and Charlie Musselwhite at the Fillmore West in February of 1970.

He returned to Detroit in 1971 where he continued his art and music. He recorded a album with Ted Lucas in 1976. He also worked with Stanley Mouse on a Ted Lucas solo album cover design. Also in 1976 he began working at the Detroit Sun with Gary Grimshaw and John Sinclair. In 1978 Dennis became the Art Director for Goldmine Magazine. During this time he also began to work for indie labels as a freelance designer. Throughout the 70's and 80's he did hundreds of flyers, posters, record covers for Detroit area bands. In 1986 he again worked with Gary at Creem magazine. When Cambray Publishing, which owned Creem, decided to relocate to Los Angeles Dennis became the Art Director. That lasted until Creem was sold in 1991. Dennis started freelancing fulltime with labels like Rhino, Bomp, Ichiban, Del-Fi, and Curb among others. He has also done a couple of posters for the House Of Blues in LA. The Whisky-A-Go-Go has asked him to design a commemorative series of posters which will be available soon. These will feature all the major artists that played the historic venue! He is currently working on the packaging for a collection of Frank Zappa's early recordings for Del-Fi records.

Biography of Erickson Kerne

Kerne Erickson, a graduate of the prestigious Los Angeles Art Center College of Design, Erickson spent years as a freelance graphic artist compiling an arsenal from the innumerable and varying demands exerted by his considerable clientele, the culmination of this freelance experience is a style that bares rich evidence of the hand, brush and paint, but without distracting from the total impact of a completed image. For the last three years Erickson has applied his talents to the gradual expansion of the vivid Travel and Aloha images offered by Greg Young Publishing. Although close to twenty of Erickson’s pieces in the line now focus on travel to the Hawaiian Islands, there is an almost equal share of the line that depicts among the most recognizable landmarks from all over the United States and the world, the New York skyline and the Eiffel Tower being just two examples of these. A meticulous researcher, Erickson tracks the slightest details—from license plates to period clothing—to render them historically accurate for a finished work which appeals to both the aviation-travel historian and any admirer of fine art.

Erickson is a member of the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society recipient of the Most Innovative Painting Award at the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Exhibit in Osage Beach, MO. Other recent awards among his numerous honors include the Patron Purchase Award at the 1997 Watercolor USA Juried Show in Springfield, MO., as well as the Gold Award at the 1994 California Discovery Awards Juried Competitio.

Biography of Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera was born on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico. At the age of two, before Diego was even able to read, his father set up a studio for him. The family lived in Guanajuato until 1892, when they moved to Mexico City. At the young age of 10, Diego decided he wanted to become an artist. So he began taking evening classes at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. He enrolled in military college at the request of his father. But Diego did not like the strict regimen and after two weeks, in 1898, he attended San Carlos as a full-time student. At the school’s annual show, he exhibited for the first time with 26 works and became and established painter. But Rivera was unhappy with the new art director at the academy. And so he decided to leave the school where he had been a student for the last six years.

Diego Rivera's art was one of the columns on which one of the strongest movements in american painting was to find support: Mexican Muralism. His art greatly depends on a vocabulary born from a mixture between Gauguin and the aztec and mayan sculptures. His works range from murals and pencil drawings to book illustrations and political writings. Diego Rivera, using simplified forms and vivid colors, brilliantly rescued the precolombine past, as well as the most important moments of Mexico's history: the land, the factory and land workers, the customs and the popular way of life. Diego Rivera's contribution to modern mexican art was decisive in murals and conventional painting; he was a revolutionary painter who wanted to take the art to a broad audience, to the street and buildings, using a precise and direct language with a realistic style, full of social meaning. Parallel to his creative effort, Diego Rivera teached and gathered a magnificent collection of mexican popular art.

Early Years of Diego Rivera
Diego María Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, better known as Diego Rivera, was barely ten years old, Diego's family moved to Mexico City. There, he obtained a government scholarhip to attend to the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos (San Carlos' Fine Arts Academy), in which he remained until he was expelled in 1902, due to his participation in the student revolts of that year. The influences he received while in Mexico's capital were varied, going from those received from his first teacher, who was a pupil of Ingres,to those from José Guadalupe Posada, engraver in whose workshop Diego worked and whose influence was to be decisive in his subsequent artistic development. Five years later, Diego had his first exposition, which was a great success among the public; this earned him a Veracruz's government scholarship to continue his pictoric education in Spain, at the San Fernando de Madrid school. From there he traveled to France, Belgium, Holland and Great Britain, between 1908 and 1910, until he finally moved to Paris in 1911. During this trip he was influenced by post-impresionism, mainly by Paul Cézanne's art. This moved him to experiment with cubism and some other new styles, in whose languages Diego unfolded freely, creating original artworlks full of harmony. In 1910 he also exhibited forty of his artworks in Mexico, with which, even though his vigorous style was not fully developed, he obtained a favorable reaction from the public.

Journey Continued ...
In 1909, through his friend and fellow painter Maria Gutierrez, he met a young Russian painter by the name of Angelina Belhoff. She later became his common law wife for the next twelve years. They traveled Europe together and spent a lot of time in Paris where Diego participated in several exhibitions. During this time, they had many friends who were Russian. In 1918, Rivera met Elie Faure, which began a lifelong friendship between the two men. Faure reawakened Rivera’s enthusiasm for murals and encouraged him to go to Italy and study the works of the masters. While in Italy, he was exposed to frescoes from hundreds of years earlier. They were often painted on the walls of churches so that everyone in the towns could enjoy and appreciate them. After fourteen years away from Mexico, he left Paris and Angelina Belhoff and returned home and participated in what is known as the Mexican Renaissance.

Jose Vasconcelos, the new minister of public education, initiated a national program which included adding mural art to public buildings. He offered Rivera an indoor wall at the National Preparatory School, part of the University of Mexico. Here, Rivera painted one of his most popular works, Creation. In 1922, he married Guadalupe Marin, whom he met while on travels in Mexico to study the various landscapes and history. Over the next four years, Rivera worked on 124 frescoes on the courtyard walls of the Ministry of Public Education. This particular work made him famous in the Western world and truly began the revival of mural painting.

In the Fall of 1927, Diego traveled to the Soviet Union to take part in the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October Revolution. He traveled as a member of an official delegation of the Mexican Communist Party. When he returned to Mexico, his marriage to Guadalupe Marin, the mother of his two children, ended. In 1928, he went on to meet Frida Kahlo, at a weekly party. He and Kahlo married in 1929, the year he was also appointed the head of the Department of Plastic Crafts at the Ministry of Education, a position he held until 1938. Rivera, with the help of David Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco, created the Labor Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors. In November of 1930, Rivera began work on his first two major American commissions: the American Stock Exchange Luncheon Club and the California School of Fine Arts. But it was in 1932 that Nelson Rockefeller asked him to paint a mural in the Radio Corporation Arts building in Rockefeller Center. And in 1933, he began the mural entitled Man at the Cossroads. However, conflict arose over the mural in which Rivera included Lenin, leader of the Soviet Union. As a result, the mural was never completed and was chipped off the wall and destroyed in February of 1934. Rivera was determined to compete the mural but in a different location. His new version called Man, Controller of the Universe, was done in Mexico City and included a portrait of Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Rivera returned to Mexico at the end of 1933.

In the 1930 decade, his fame expansion took Rivera to show his art in New York, and was asked to paint big murals at the Detroit Art Institute and at the Rockefeller Center in New York, where his fresco "Hombre en la encrucijada (Man at the crossroads)", received a lot of criticism because of the resemblance of one of his figures with Lenin. The mural was destroyed by the Rockefeller Center, and substituted by antoher from Brangwyn, but Diego later reproduced it for the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Palace) in Mexico City. In his numerous assignments decorating public buildings, Rivera used the buon fresco, technique, which he fashioned again, as well as the use of old encaustic methods.

Alberto Pani, a politician who had befriended Rivera in Europe, was asked to ascertain if Mexico would permit Leon Trotsky immediate political asylum. Rivera sought out President Cárdenas, who agreed to give Trotsky refuge. Trotsky and his wife lived in Rivera’s home of Coyoacán. Along with André and Jacqueline Bretón, the Trotsky and Rivera families socialized and traveled together until personal and political conflicts developed between Diego and Trotsky. In 1940, Diego and Frida were separated, divorced, and remarried in December of the same year. Rivera went to San Francisco to participate in the 1940 Golden Gate international exposition. Meanwhile, Trotsky’s life was in danger when Siqueiros led an assassination attempt on him in his Coyoacán house. Just months later, Trotsky was assassinated by Ramón Mercader in August.

In 1947, Rivera went on to form the Commission of Mural Painting, an arm of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA), with Orozco and Siqueiros. Controversy followed Rivera once again when he completed his mural at the Hotel del Prado. He included a slogan reading “God does not exist”, which kept the mural from public view for nine years. Once again, one of Rivera’s works was removed in 1952. This time, it was in the Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes, where his painting of The Nightmare of War and the Dream of Peace included Stalin and Mao Tsetung.

Last Years
From the end of the 1930 decade he painted landscapes and portraits. In his last paintings, he developed an indigenist and social style of great popular atractive. , in November 25th 1957 at Mexico City. Rivera suffered a great loss in July of 1954 when his wife Frida Kahlo died. But one year later, he married Emma Hurtado, his dealer since 1946. Following an operation towards the end of the year, Rivera went through cobalt treatments. In April of 1956, he returned to his native Mexico and recuperated at the home of his friend Dolores Olmedo. On November 24, 1957, Rivera died of heart failure in his San Angel studio. He was buried in the Rotunda of Famous Men in Civil Pantheon of Mourning. His most ambitious and greates project, an epic mural based on Mexico's history for the National Palace, was left unfinished due to his death. No wonder, he is still considered a Latin American folk hero.

Biography of Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko was born on Sept. 25, 1903, in Gvinsk, Russia, and immigrated to the United States in 1913, settling in Seattle. He enrolled at Yale University in 1921 and at The Art Student's League in New York in 1925. In 1936, Rothko joined the WPA (Works Project Administration) easel painting division in New York where he met Adolph Gottlieb, Milton Avery and William Baziotes. In 1948, with Robert Motherwell, Clifford Still and Barnett Newman, Rothko formed 'The Subjects of Artists School,' a group that met to discuss the content of abstract painting. By the late 1940's, Rothko was considered a seminal figure in the Abstract ex-pressionist movement. Rothko's images became abstract under the influence of the European Surrealist's, and like the Surrealists, he was interested in mythology and universal symbols. By the late 1940's, Rothko had established his signature style of rectangular forms defined by an irregular, undefined edge painted on a one-color field. Celebrated for his use of color, Rothko developed a process in which he used thinned oils applied in layers to attain the effect of translucent and luminous watercolor. For extensive periods throughout his career Rothko taught at colleges and universities.

Rothko's first solo exhibition in New York was held at the Contemporary Arts Gallery in 1933. In 1935, he was a founding member of the Ten, a group of artists sympathetic to abstraction and ex-pressionism [more]. He executed easel paintings for the WPA Federal Art Project from 1936 to 1937. By 1936, Rothko knew Barnett Newman. In the early 1940s, he worked closely with Gottlieb, developing a painting style with mythological content, simple flat shapes, and imagery inspired by primitive art. By mid-decade, his work incorporated Surrealist techniques and images. Peggy Guggenheim gave Rothko a solo show at Art of This Century in New York in 1945. In 1947 and 1949, Rothko taught at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, where Clyfford Still was a fellow instructor. With William Baziotes, David Hare, and Robert Motherwell, Rothko founded the short-lived Subjects of the Artist school in New York in 1948. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw the emergence of Rothko's mature style, in which frontal, luminous rectangles seem to hover on the canvas surface. In 1958, the artist began his first commission, monumental paintings for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gave Rothko an important solo exhibition in 1961. He completed murals for Harvard University in 1962 and in 1964 accepted a mural commission for an interdenominational chapel in Houston. Rothko took his own life February 25, 1970, in his New York studio. A year later, the Rothko Chapel in Houston was dedicated.

Rothko's images became abstract under the influence of the European Surrealist's, and like the Surrealists, he was interested in mythology and universal symbols. By the late 1940's, Rothko had established his signature style of rectangular forms defined by an irregular, undefined edge painted on a one-color field. Celebrated for his use of color, Rothko developed a process in which he used thinned oils applied in layers to attain the effect of translucent and luminous watercolor.

Rothko's paintings are viewed by many to be quasi-religious although they have represent no object or symbol of faith. They are spiritual, timeless and personal, transcendent and emotional.

Biography of Alphonse Mucha

Alphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivancice, Moravia, which is near the city of Brno in the modern Czech Republic. It was a small town, and for all intents and purposes life was closer to the 18th than the 19th century. Though Mucha is supposed to have started drawing before he was walking, his early years were spent as a choirboy and amateur musician. It wasn't until he finished high school (needing two extra years to accomplish that onerous task) that he came to realize that living people were responsible for some of the art he admired in the local churches. That epiphany made him determined to become a painter, despite his father's efforts in securing him "respectable" employment as a clerk in the local court.

Like every aspiring artist of the day, Mucha ended up in Paris in 1887. He was a little older than many of his fellows, but he had come further in both distance and time. A chance encounter in Moravia had provided him with a patron who was willing to fund his studies. After two years in Munich and some time devoted to painting murals for his patron, he was sent off to Paris where he studied at the Academie Julian. After two years the supporting funds were discontinued and Alphonse Mucha was set adrift in a Paris that he would soon transform. At the time, however, he was a 27 year old with no money and no prospects

For five years he played the part to perfection. Living above a Cremerie that catered to art students, drawing illustrations for popular (ie. low-paying) magazines, getting deathly ill and living on lentils and borrowed money, Mucha met all the criteria. It was everything an artist's life was supposed to be. Some success, some failure. Friends abounded and art flourished. It was the height of Impressionism and the beginnings of the Symbolists and Decadents. He shared a studio with Gauguin for a bit after his first trip to the south seas. Mucha gave impromptu art lessons in the Cremerie and helped start a traditional artists ball, Bal des Quat'z Arts. All the while he was formulating his own theories and precepts of what he wanted his art to be.

The breakthrough came in December 1894. Mucha became famous with a commission for a poster for the actress Sarah Bernard. On January 1, 1895, he presented his new style to the citizens of Paris. Called upon over the Christmas holidays to created a poster for Sarah Bernhardt's play, Gismonda, he put his precepts to the test. The poster, at left, was the declaration of his new art. Spurning the bright colors and the more squarish shape of the more popular poster artists, the near life-size design was a
sensation.Sarah Bernard was a very famous actress and celebrity of her time. His poster design for the play Gismonda became a sensation in Paris. Sarah Bernhard was delighted. He received an exclusive contract for six consecutive years by the actress. In the following years, he not only designed all her posters, but her theater decorations and costumes as well. From now on the artist was swamped with commissions for all kind of commercial print advertising.

Art Nouveau ("New Art" in French) can trace it's beginnings to about this time. Based on precepts akin to William Morris' Arts and Crafts movement in England, the attempt was to eradicate the dividing line between art and audience. Everything could and should be art. Burne-Jones designed wallpaper, Hector Guimard designed metro stations, and Mucha designed champagne advertising (at right) and stage sets. Each country had its own name for the new approach and artists of incredible skill and vision flocked to the movement. Overnight, Mucha's name became a household word and, though his name is often used synonymously with the new movement in art, he disavowed the connection. Like Sinatra, he merely did it "my way." His way was based on a strong composition, sensuous curves derived from nature, refined decorative elements and natural colors. The Art Nouveau precepts were used, too, but never at the expense of his vision.

His fame spread around the world and several trips to America and resulted in covers and illustrations in a variety of U.S. magazines. Portraiture was also commissioned from U.S. patrons. At the end of the decade he was prepared to begin what he considered his life's work. Mucha was always a patriot of his Czech homeland and considered his success a triumph for the Czech people as much as for himself. In 1909 he was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the Lord Mayor's Hall in Prague. He also began to plan out "The Slav Epic" - a series of great paintings chronicling major events in the Slav nation. Financing was provided by Charles Crane, a Chicago millionaire. Mucha had hoped to complete the task in five or six years, but instead it embraced 18 years of his life. Twenty massive (about 24 x 30 feet) canvasses were created and presented to the city of Prague in 1928. Covering the history of the Slavic people from prehistory to the nineteenth century, they represented Mucha's hopes and dreams for his homeland. In 1919 the first eleven canvases were completed and exhibited in Prague, and America where they received a much warmer welcome.

Alphonse Mucha with his decorative posters has become a kind of trademark and synonym for the Art Nouveau movement. In the sixties his poster reproductions had a revival and were popular again among the flower-power and hippie generation. Alfons Mucha - his Academic Training Alfons Maria Mucha was born in Ivancice, a small provincial town in the Czech Republic.

In 1990 the artist had his first one man show in Paris with 448 works on display. His art work was not confined to the printing media. He designed tissues, stamps and even bank bills. In 1900 he received a commission by the Austrian government to decorate the Austrian pavilion for the World Fair in Paris of 1900. He became also active in designing jewelry. Between 1904 and 1921 Mucha traveled frequently to the United States. He took commissions in the US and taught art at art academies in New York and Chicago. In 1939 the German Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. The popularity of the artist made him a number one target for the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. He was arrested, interrogated and realeased. Shortly afterwards, Alphonse Maria Mucha died on July 14, 1939 in Prague. The city of Prague has dedicated an Alphonse Mucha Museum to the artist.

Biography of Will Rafuse

Will Rafuse was born in Calgary, Alberta. After spending many years living on the Prairies he moved to Vancouver in 1986. He received a diploma in Graphic Arts and Illustration from Capilano College in North Vancouver and continued his education at Vancouver Community College, receiving a diploma in Computer Graphics and Multimedia. Intrigued by the works of Modigliani, Gauguin and Balthus, Will works mostly in oils and is known for his bright colors and the slightly animated twist of the subjects he paints. Aside from illustrating for a number of corporations, he has been a regular at "Painters' Corner" in Stanley Park, Vancouver. His art is in the collection of corporations and individuals around the world.

Although he was born in Calgary, Alberta, Will has been a resident of Vancouver for 17 years. Despite his lifelong interest in art, it was only in 1994 when Will decided to pursue his interest in painting. Will began his professional painting career in Stanley Park's Painter's Corner, not knowing that his colorful characters will soon become a permanent fixture in the Vancouver art scene and in both private and corporate collections worldwide. His signature style can be recognized in movies and television shows.

Working exclusively in oils, Will has the ability to make his subject matter come alive with the use of stunning, bold colors, an element that has become part of his signature style. His art has a universal appeal to those who are looking to add a light hearted, witty image to their environment. His work ranges from loveable animals to animated characters to delectable pastries and cocktails, but his trademark style remains unmistakable.

After graduating from Capilano College's Graphic Art and Illustration program in 1996, Will continued his work at Stanley Park until the year 2000. Soon after completing his education, the Robson Street Business Association selected Will to design the banners that adorned Robson Street from May to October of 1996. In 1997, his artwork penetrated the open edition poster market, when he signed a partnership with Canadian Art Posters. Since then, his collection of vibrant imagery has gained popularity worldwide, quickly making him one of CAP's top selling artists. In addition to his originals and open edition prints, Will's images have also been licensed for a variety of products including coasters, dish ware, textiles, decorative clocks, among others, and have remained in high demand in the licensing industry.

Though his schedule is always full, Will thoroughly enjoys contributing to the community and never fails to make time to support local and national non-profit organizations. Through the years, Will has donated original pieces to many of Vancouver's charities such as The Shooting Star Foundation, Loving Spoonful, and Canuck Place Hospice. Also, he has contributed artwork to help raise funds for American Express' "Taste of the Nation", fighting hunger in the community, the Ronald McDonald House, the Arizona Animal Welfare League and Robert Mondovi's campaign in support of Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Despite his tremendous success, Will maintains his down-to-earth and friendly nature that makes him a well respected and esteemed individual in all the ventures that he embarks upon. He continues to work hard at his craft and constantly strives for growth as an artist and as a person. In 2003 Will was nominated and has become a member of the "International Who's Who Historical Society."

Biography of James Blakeway

James Blakeway is founder, president and chief panoramic photographer for Blakeway Worldwide Panoramas, Inc., in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Blakeway was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota, and received a B.S. in marketing from the University of North Dakota. After holding several marketing positions with Procter & Gamble, he decided to start his own business. Unsure which direction his business should take, he seized an opportunity to travel to Australia, thinking that he might find a business idea there. Indeed he did: he met two men who had created a phenomenal panoramic photograph of the Sydney Harbor. Blakeway worked with them until his visa expired, sold them his share of the business in exchange for a few hundred posters and returned to the United States to start his own panoramic photo business.

In California, Blakeway and a partner began selling photos from Blakeway's garage and from the trunk of his car. Later, he moved the business to Minneapolis and then to Eden Prairie, where the company is now located. Today Blakeway and his team travel the globe creating some of the most beautiful cityscapes made by anyone in the world. James Blakeway is known for going to extreme lengths to get the picture he wants. This can mean hanging from helicopters, or being suspended by a crane 800 feet up in the air. From these crazy exploits he has managed to take some fantastic city scapes of many of the worlds most famous cities, historical landmarks and golf courses.

James Blakeway uses unconventional ways of getting the panoramic shot he desires. He has hung from a helicopter and been suspended 800 feet in the air from a crane. One of the world's premier skyline photographers, Blakeway makes it his business to get the shot nobody else dares. The result of his aerobic exploits is an impressive collection of more that 120 panoramic lithographs of U.S. and world cities, historic landmarks and golf courses. Blakeway's collection is marketed worldwide through art galleries, framing and art retailers, photography studios and on the Internet.

Biography of Leonetto Cappiello

Born in the Italian resort town of Livorno, Cappiello (1875 – 1942) had a natural talent for drawing and his first ambition was to be a great painter. Leonetto Cappiello is often called the father of the Modern Poster. His posters are a sequel to the works of the artists such as Villemot, Cheret and Pal. The Italian born artist, became famous in 1900 and created posters in Paris for over forty years. Leonetto Cappiello started his career working as a caricaturist. After 1900 he devoted himself to painting and advertising poster design. Soon he became the most acclaimed European artist of that period. He became an innovator of advertising poster techniques, often painting the figures on a monochrome background, achieving an impressive aesthetic effect in combination with vividly colored graphics. In the beginning, he became quite popular as a caricaturist working for magazines. His style was humorous and joyful, with bold colors and he went on to become a successful posterist just at a time when the output of the 1890's had begun to slow. Cappiello was the poster artist to work in the traditions of the nineteenth century. Cappiello had a clear antecedents in his style but he developed an entirely original approach to the means of portraying the pictorial message. By means of wide color planes and highly exaggerated colors and situations, he shocked, surprised and moved. He began his career with a very gestural style and then went on to lead the bold graphic style of the Art Deco movement as it flowered in the 1902's and 30's. He designed posters for ballets, literature, plays and music halls, champagne and spirits bottles and even travel. He produced approximately 3,000 lithographic posters, making him the most prestigious artist in the history of the lithographic poster.

As a painter he decorated many halls of the Galeries Lafayette in Paris and in 1922, he took part in the Biennale of Venice. Later, in 1939, he participated in the Exposition des Arts Decoratives in Paris. He stared studying art with a painter’s career in mind, but meanwhile, purely as a hobby, he would make a quick sketch of anybody who caught his attention- relatives, home town characters, an occasional interesting tourist. Soon, he found that these quick caricatures were always favorably received, and y the time he was 21, he was able to make a little money by having the best of these homespun drawings published in booklet form. That may not have swayed him in itself, but two years later, in 1898, he took a trip to Paris to visit his older brother who happened to be working there a the Stock Exchange. Leonetto found Paris intoxicating, and wanted to put off returning to his sleepy little seaside hometown for a while; the only way to it, of course, was by finding a way to support himself. Why not utilize his gift for caricature again? His brother told him that various magazines might pay a good price for caricatures of celebrities, particularly ones that have not been done to death already. Since that was true of most of the regularly Paris stars, Leonetto to approached two famous visitors who were just then staying in town, and who, being fellow Italian, might be willing to give an untried kid a break: actor Ermete Novelli and composer Giacomo Puccini. They obliged, and Leonetto promptly sold the sketches to Le Rire; they were so well received that within weeks, he became the favored caricaturist of theater and cabaret stars of Paris.

One of the major reasons for the quick acceptance of Cappiello was the fact that his caricatures were never offensive: where other caricaturists would grossly distort their subjects’ facial features and hold them up for ridicule, Cappiello used only subtle exaggeration to spotlight their outstanding characteristics. This gave him access to the one group of performers who previously fought tooth and nail not to be caricatured: the prominent ladies of the stage. When they saw that he meant them no harm, even the most famous names of the day-Sarah Bernhardt, Rejane, Jeannie Granier- were suddenly willing to sit still for caricatures, and the young man from Livorno became the darling of the foremost beauties of Paris. This prompted Alexandre Natanson, co-publisher of La Revue Blanche, one of the magazines that had been using his sketches, to commission Cappiello to publish a portfolio of these drawings under the title “Nos Actrices” (“Our Actresses”), which came out in 1899 and launched his career in earnest.
But he might have remained a professional illustrator if one of the editors to whom he routinely submitted sketches had not asked him to prepare a poster for a new humor magazine he was launching, Le Frou-Frou. Cappiello used a simple caricature in his usual style – a can-can girl kicking up her skirts – but now he had to use color, so he opted for a plain yellow background and a dab of red on the pantaloons peeking out from under the petticoats.

The poster, prepared so quickly in such an offhand way, made a provocative splash on the billboards that no passer-by could resist. Instinctively, Cappiello hit on the right formula: create an eye-catching character and make a bold, loud statement-and everything else becomes immaterial. It brought him immediate further offers from various advertisers, and made him aware of the enormous power of effective communication: he found the field in which he would labor the rest of his life. His technique evolved fundamentally from that of British posterists like Hassal, Hardy and the Beggarstaff Brothers, who used simple drawings and flat colors-only Cappiello added dynamic zest and dramatic impact they had never dreamed of. The designs, for the first few attempts, are firmly rooted in his caricature style; but gradually, he frees his imagination and begins to develop a poster language even more compelling.

In 1981, a major retrospective of Cappiello's work was presented at the Galerie Nationale du Grand Palais in Paris.

Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe was an American artist born on November 15, 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. O'Keeffe is chiefly known for her landscapes and paintings of desert flowers, which are often interpreted as yonic symbols. Her mature style stressed contours and subtle tonal transitions, which often transformed the subject into a powerful abstract image. O'Keeffe studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students' League in New York City. She began teaching in the public schools in Amarillo, Texas in 1914. In 1916 started teaching at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina. While in South Carolina, a friend showed some of O'Keeffe's drawings to photographer and art gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. Impressed by the drawings, Stieglitz began negotiations to display her work and she allowed him to exhibit some of them. Stieglitz was especially impressed with O'Keeffe's interpretations of landscapes in the American West. In 1916, Stieglitz arranged for O'Keeffe to move to New York City and secured a place for her to live. Over the next few years O'Keeffe and Stieglitz fell in love, and Stieglitz and his wife divorced. In 1924, O'Keeffe and Stieglitz married, beginning one of history's great creative partnerships. Some of Stieglitz' best work was of O'Keeffe, his muse, and in turn he promoted and encouraged her art throughout his life. Georgia O'Keeffe was an American original, living as she chose, painting what she wanted. It is said that her art is uniquely American, shining with a bright modernism and energy. The lyrical flowers, the New Mexico-inspired vistas of light and shape, the hard-edged, energetic urban landscapes all somehow could only have been painted by an American woman. O'Keeffe painted all her days, committed as always to what she loved: "Art is a wicked thing. It is what we are."

During her years in New York City, O'Keefe produced many paintings, including urban and architectural images. With Stieglitz's connections in the arts community of New York, O'Keefe's work received a great deal of attention and commanded high prices. Yet O'Keeffe tired of the scene in New York and spent increasing amounts of time in the west. Stieglitz, many years older than O'Keeffe and often in ill health, was uncomfortable with travel. Her trips west gave her the solitude she required to pursue her art.

Though O'Keeffe insisted that there was no symbolism behind her work, art critics continue to speculate about the sexual imagery in such paintings as Black Iris (1926) and Jack in the Pulpit No. 6 (1930). Indeed, this generative tension underlying her botanical paintings accounts for much of their force and mystery, and these images exalting life and energy were among her most optimistic and successful. Between 1926 and 1929 O'Keeffe painted a group of views of New York City. New York Night (1929) transformed skyscrapers into patterned, glittering structures that deny their volume. More architecturally characteristic were such paintings as Lake George Barns (1926) and Ranchos Church, Taos (1929). These simple buildings, further simplified in her painting, were America's anonymous folk architecture; in these forms O'Keeffe found a permanence and tranquility that contrasted with the frenetic urban environment.

In 1929 O'Keeffe began spending time in New Mexico; that region's dramatic mesas, ancient Spanish architecture, vegetation, and desiccated terrain became her constant themes. Total clarity characterizes her elemental vistas, and her subjects existed in self-contained worlds. Even her allegories of death in the desert — a sunbleached skull lying in the sand or affixed to a post (as in Cow's Skull with Red, 1936) — were eternalized. She regarded these whitened relics as symbols of the desert, nothing more. "To me, they are strangely more living than the animals walking around — hair, eyes and all, with their tails switching." The dried animal bones and wooden crucifixes of the region which loom in her desert (Black Cross, New Mexico, 1929) were disquieting apparitions.

In 1945 O'Keeffe bought an old adobe house in New Mexico; she moved there after her husband's death in 1946. The house served as a frequent subject. In paintings such as Black Patio Door (1955) and Patio with Cloud (1956) details of doors, windows, and walls were radically reduced to virtually unmodified planes of color. Many of O'Keeffe's paintings of the 1960s, large-scale patterns of clouds and landscapes seen from the air, reflected a romanticized view of nature evocative of her early themes. It Was Blue and Green (1960) used more impressionistic color, and the painting technique was looser, with less reliance on sharp contours. These large paintings culminated in a 24-foot mural on canvas, Sky above Clouds IV (1965). Her paintings of the 1970s were intense, powerful renditions of a black cock. A portrayal of O'Keeffe, In Cahoots with Coyote, from Terry Tempest Williams' 1994 book An Unspoken Hunger, painted a vivid narrative of the artist's entrancement with her beloved New Mexico she first visited in 1917.

"I simply paint what I see," O'Keeffe is quoted as saying, from O'Keeffe's own essays published in Georgia O'Keeffe in 1987. But, narrated Williams, her search for the ideal color, light, stones, parched bones that contained more life in them than living animals, transformed her forays into desert country into a communion with the perfection around her. Once, in a canyon bottom, she was so enthralled by the sight that she laid her head back Coyote-fashion and howled at the sky, terrifying her companions nearby who feared she was injured. "I can't help it — it's all so beautiful," was her response. Another, well-known story related by Williams was of O'Keeffe purloining a perfectly shaped, totally black stone she coveted from the coffee table of friends. They had found it at a canyon riverbed during a search for stones moments before O'Keeffe arrived at the spot, but kept it tantalizingly out of her reach. Obsessed with the stone and seeing it on the table for her to steal if she wanted, she had no doubt she was the rightful possessor of such beauty.

O'Keeffe's boldly original American works encompassed a wide vision from taut city towers to desertscapes in such vivid hues and form "as to startle the senses," according to the narrative. O'Keeffe painted until a few weeks before her death. O'Keeffe spent much of her time in Taos, New Mexico, and when Stieglitz died in 1946, she took up permanent residence there, living in Taos or Santa Fe until her death in March 6, 1986. Her home was in Abiqui, New Mexico. Many of her works found a permanent home among the abode buildings of Sante Fe, New Mexico. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, designed by New York architect Richard Gluckman, opened in 1997 to hold more of her pastels, drawings, paintings and sculpture than any other museum.

Biography of Don Li-Leger

Born and raised in British Columbia, Don Li-Leger has painted since childhood, focusing initially on the birds and animals of his native province. Li-Leger's formal training includes studies at the Vancouver School of Art, Simon Fraser University and the Banff Centre School of Fine Art. His work has been featured in exhibitions throughout North America, including the prestigious Leigh-Yawkey Woodson traveling exhibit, and is represented in many private collections. Li-Leger works from the Crescent Beach, British Columbia studio/home he shares with his wife, Cora, also an artist, and their two young children. Li-Leger's original works may be seen at the Petley-Jones Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Don Li-Leger's paintings reveal the artist’s intimate knowledge and deep sensitivity to the often hidden realms of nature. Born and raised in British Columbia, he has painted since childhood, focusing initially on birds and animals of his native province. In later years, extensive field trips to the Orient and to wildlife sanctuaries throughout North America extended his vision - and the scope of his subject matter.Recently, his work has taken a new departure, with figurative etchings and more improvisational mono-prints and paintings.

Li-Leger’s formal training includes studies at the Vancouver School of Art and the Banff Centre School of Fine Art, and studies in plant ecology at Simon Fraser University. His work has been featured in exhibitions throughout North America, and is represented in many private collections. Li-Leger works from the CrescentHeights studio/home, which he shares with his wife, Cora, who is also an artist. Don Li-Leger has experienced a rich and varied life. He travelled around the world in 1971 before studying plant ecology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. He then studied painting with Terry Frost at the Banff Centre School of Fine Art in 1975 and illustration with Frank Beebe, natural history artist with the B.C. Provincial Museum. In 1977, Don studied print-making at Okanagan College in Kelowna, B.C. where he received a Canadian Nature Artist Scholarship Award. While Don lived here, his paintings of birds and other nature themed pieces became very sought after by collectors.

The paintings in this series grew out of my intensive involvement with monoprints, where I improvised and combined various imagery with broad areas of rolled-on saturated colour. Here, I have returned to painting, in my desire to integrate the spontaneity and liveliness of Oriental brushwork that has long inspired and influenced me. Using Chinese as well as Western bristle brushes, I apply acrylic paint and gels on canvas, often layered transparent colour or rice paper collage to achieve desired effects. As with much of my work, nature remains an underlying theme. In some paintings the calligraphy is taken from ancient and Chinese poems, and reflects my interest and studies in Asian painting, travels and philosophy.

Biography of Henri Silberman

Henri Silberman is an American photographer, born in Paris. In his teenage years, Silberman became fascinated by photography and has subsequently made a highly successful career from his talent and skills, especially in the field of New York urban landscapes. The famous Brooklyn Bridge photograph which is one of the most popular work, features lower Manhattan and a view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Shown between the two piers of the bridge is the South Street Seaport. Across the bridge are the 110 story twin towers of the World Trade Center. Moon Over Manhattan, New York, Sky Over Manhattan, Empire State Building at Night, Flatrion, Chrysler Building are other popular work of Henri Silberma

Biography of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. He was one of the greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance, and his influence on the painting of the following generations was enormous. Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, near the village of Vinci about 25 miles west of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a prominent notary of Florence, who had no other children until much later. Ser Piero raised his son himself, a common practice at the time, arranging for Leonardo's mother to marry a villager. When Leonardo was 15, his father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading artist of Florence and a characteristic talent of the early Renaissance. Verrocchio, a sculptor, painter, and goldsmith, was a remarkable craftsman, and his great skill and passionate concern for quality of execution, as well as his interest in expressing the vital mobility of the human figure, were important element. Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance architect, musician, anatomist, inventor, engineer, sculptor, geometer, and painter. He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" and as a universal genius. Leonardo is famous for his masterly paintings, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. He is also known for designing many inventions that anticipated modern technology but were rarely constructed in his lifetime. In addition, he helped advance the study of anatomy, astronomy, and civil engineering.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Anchiano, near Vinci, Italy. He was an illegitimate child. His father, Ser Piero da Vinci was a young lawyer and his mother,Caterina, was probably a peasant girl. It has also been suggested, albeit on scanty evidence, that she was a Middle Eastern slave owned by Piero. However, the lattertheory is unlikely to be true. As he was born before modern naming conventions developed in Europe, his full name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", which means"Leonardo, son of Mister Piero, from Vinci". Leonardo himself simply signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo"). Most authorities therefore refer to hisworks as "Leonardos", not "da Vincis". Presumably he did not use his father's name because of his illegitimate status.

Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence. Here, he started drawing and painting. His early sketches were of such quality that his father soon showed them to the painterAndrea del Verrocchio who subsequently took the fourteen-year old Leonardo on as an apprentice. Later, he became an independent painter in Florence. Modern criticscontend that Leonardo's love of boys was well-known even in the sixteenth century. Rocke reports that in a fictional dialogue on l'amore masculino (male love) written by the contemporary art critic and theorist Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Leonardo appears as one of the protagonists and declares, "Know that male love is exclusively the product ofvirtue which, joining men together with the diverse affections of friendship, makes it so that from a tender age they would enter into the manly one as more stalwart friends." In the dialogue, the interlocutor inquires of Leonardo about his relations with his assistant, Salai, "Did you play the game from behind which the Florentines love so much?"

From around 1482 to 1499 Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan employed Leonardo and permitted him to operate his own workshop complete with apprentices. It was here thatseventy tons of bronze that had been set aside for Leonardo's "Gran Cavallo" horse statue (see below) were cast into weapons for the Duke in an attempt to save Milan fromthe French under Charles VIII in 1495. When the French returned under Louis XII in 1498, Milan fell without a fight, overthrowing Sforza. Leonardo stayed in Milan for a time,until one morning when he found French archers using his life-size clay model of the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. He left with Salai and his friend (and the first man todescribe double-entry bookkeeping) Luca Pacioli for Mantua, moving on after 2 months to Venice (where he was hired as a military engineer), then briefly returning toFlorence at the end of April 1500.

In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia (also called "Duca Valentino", the son of Pope Alexander VI) as a military architect and engineer with whom he travelled throughout Italy. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French.

From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time, though he did not have much contact with these artists. However, he was probably of pivotal importance in relocation of 'David', one of Michelangelo's masterpieces, against the artist's will. In 1515 Francis I of France retook Milan, and Leonardo was commissioned to make a centrepiece (a mechanical lion) for the peace talks between the French King and Pope Leo X in Bologna, where he must have first met the King. In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé next to the king's residence at the Royal Chateau at Amboise The King granted Leonardo and his entourage generous pensions: the surviving document lists 1000 ecus for the artist, 400 for Melzi (named "apprentice") and 100 for Salai (named "servant"). In 1518 Salai left Leonardo and returned to Milan, where he eventually perished in a duel. Francis became a close friend.

Leonardo da Vinci died in Cloux, France on 2nd May, 1519, in the arms of King Francis. According to his wish, 60 beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Melzi was his principal heir and executor, but Salai was not forgotten: he received half of Leonardo's vineyard. Leonardo is well known for his artistry and paintings, such as Last Supper (Ultima Cena or Cenacolo, in Milan) 1498, and the Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris), 1503-1506. Though there is significant debate whether Leonardo himself painted the Mona Lisa, or whether it was the work of his students, it is known that it was probably his favorite piece. He most likely kept it with him at all times, and not travelling without it. Thousands of people see it each year in the Louvre, perhaps drawing their own interpretation on what is known as the Mona Lisa's most infamous and enigmatic feature - her smile. Leonardo often planned grandiose paintings with many drawings and sketches, only to leave the projects unfinished. For example, in 1481 he was commissioned to paint the altarpiece "The Adoration of the Magi". After extensive, bitious plans and many drawings, the painting was left unfinished and Leonardo left for Milan. Only seventeen of his paintings and none of his statues survived.

In Milan he spent 17 years making plans and models for a monumental seven-metre (24-foot) high horse statue in bronze ("Gran Cavallo". Because of war with France, the project was never finished. Based on private initiative, a similar statue was completed according to some of his plans in 1999 in New York, given to Milan and erected there. The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland has a small bronze horse, thought to be the work of an apprentice from Leonardo's original design. After returning to Florence, he was commissioned for a large public mural, the "Battle of Anghiari"; his rival Michelangelo was to paint the opposite wall. After producing a fantastic variety of studies in preparation for the work, he left the city, with the mural unfinished due to technical difficulties.

Leonardo pioneered new painting techniques in many of his pieces. One of them, a colour shading technique called "Sfumato", used a series of custom-made glazes by Leonardo. It is characterized by subtle, almost infinitesimal, transitions between color areas, creating a atmospheric haze or smoky effect. "Chiaroscuro" is the technique of modelling and defining forms through contrasts of light and shadow.

List of Paintings
Annunciation (1475-1480) - Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Ginevra de' Benci (~1475) - National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, U.S.
The Benois Madonna (1478-1480) - Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
The Virgin with Flowers (1478-1481) - Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
Adoration of the Magi (1481) - Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Cecilia Gallerani with an Ermine (1488-90) - Czartoryski Museum, Krakow, Poland
A Musician (~1490) - Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy
Madonna Litta (1490-91) - Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
La Belle Ferronière (1495-1498) - Louvre, Paris, France
Last Supper - (1498) Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy
The Madonna of the Rocks (1483-86) - Louvre, Paris, France
Mona Lisa or La Gioconda (1503-1505/1506) - Louvre, Paris, France
The Madonna of the Rocks or The Virgin of the Rocks (1508) - National Gallery, London, England
Leda and the Swan (1508) - (Only copies survive) Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (~1510) - Louvre, Paris, France
St. John the Baptist (~1514) - Louvre, Paris, France
Bacchus (1515) - Louvre, Paris, France

Personal Details
Name: Leonardo da Vinci
Birth Date: April 15, 1452
Death Date: May 2, 1519
Place of Birth: Vinci, Italy
Place of Death: Amboise, France
Nationality: Italian
Gender: Male
Occupations: artist, painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist

Biography of Alfred Alexander Gockel

Alfred Alexander Gockel was born in 1952 in Ludinghausen, North-Rine Westphalia, Germany. Fascinated early on by the magic of color on paper, Gockel's talent and enthusiasm lead to the publication of his first artwork when he was eight years old. Educated in the areas of typography and graphic design at Polytechnic in Munster, where he graduated in 1977, Gockel worked in the advertising industry for many years. During this time, he also lectured at his alma mater in his specialized fields. Wishing to devote more time to his artwork, he established the art publishing firm of Avant Art in 1983. From his earliest days on, he was fascinated by the magic of colors on paper. This talent and enthusiasm resulted in the release of this first art work by a German publisher at the age of 8. After he graduated from high school, he commenced his studies at the Polytechnic Academy in Munster in 1973. His main emphasis was typography, graphic design and advertising. He graduated in 1977, and in the following years he was active as a freelance artist, designer and lecturer of typography and graphic design at the Polytechnic Academy in Munster. In 1981 his work of art had developed so strongly, that he had to stop with all additional activities and become a full-time artist. This was the beginning of a long and successful career. In 1981 his work of art had developed so strongly, that he had to stop with all additional activities and become a full-time artist. This was the beginning of a long and successful career. In 1983 he and his wife Ingrid founded an art publishing company; Avant Art, today a top ranked player in the abstract segment of the market, with customers in more than 50 countries worldwide.

Since 1987, the procelain, carpet and sportswear industries have made use of Gockel's design work. To meet the demands of this expansion, Gockel purchased a mill in 1988 and converted it to use as a center for graphic printing. This has led to international recognition and the 1990 establishment of two other studios, one in Londoon andthe other in Connecticut.

Gockel's compositions are marked by the bright colors and graceful motion of his characters and are trimmed with powerful black figures and accents, which fade together tocreate an individual image for each viewer. Inspired by society, Gockel's work can be divided into two major categories: unique art work, mostly oil on canvas, and graphics. However, as a premier artist, his work ranges from etching to serigraphy to aquarelles, with his graphic design background most evident in his bold and colorful abstracts.

The bright colors and the graceful motion of his characters mark Alfred’s compositions. This is a perfect reflection of his appearance and inner-self. His hyperactivity is the basis for the large number of different projects he has fulfilled, and his striving for perfection results in the highest quality for each and every one. The competitive nature of his character has led him to an accomplished career, and after 22 years he still gets inspired by society. His creations keep improving, stimulated by a large number of fans, that also keeps increasing. The few spare hours this hasty life gives him, he plays tennis, walks in the German forests with his two dogs, or jumps on two Harley Davidsons with his wife, and drives to their favorite spot at the island Sylt.

Alfred Alexander Gockel’s art collection is subdivided into two major categories: unique art work and graphics. This unique art mostly is oil on canvas, and in some periods he also creates aquarelles. His art is composed with the most beautiful lighted colors, trimmed with powerful black figures and accents. The separate colors and the black trims all fade together, and create an individual image for every spectator, no matter what culture or social position. The graphics are etchings, screen prints and lithographs, and are artistically connected to the unique sector. The distinctive style is automatically recognized as a true Gockel. However, with graphics the production and printing process is just as considerable as the artistic performance. In his collection we can notice the craftsmanship and dedication of a man who started his career at this field of study, and still can seduce his audience with his own passion.

The unique identification of his art, and the ability to load your own emotional batteries with his power, are the most heard purchase arguments. Over the past 20 years, Alfred Alexander Gockel has tried to enrich the world with his artistic view, without influencing his public with deeper messages.He keeps his art pure, the way it's supposed to be.

Biography of Jack Vettriano

Born in Scotland in 1953 of Italian parents, Jack Vettriano began his career as a mining engineer in the Scottish coalfields, painting only in his spare time. In 1988, Vettriano gave up his job as a mining engineer in order to paint full-time. He left school at 16 and became an apprentice mining engineer, but later took up painting as a hobby in his twenties. His earliest paintings were copies or pastiches of impressionist paintings (his first painting was a copy of Monet's Poppy Fields).

Vettriano's breakthrough year was 1988, when he felt ready to display his paintings in public and submitted two canvases for the Royal Scottish Academy annual show. Both paintings sold on the first day and Vettriano was approached by several galleries who wanted to sell his other work. The success and attention contributed to the breakdown of his first marriage and he moved to Edinburgh, changing his name to Vettriano, his mother's maiden name. Further successful exhibitions followed in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and New York. His paintings are reminiscent of the film noir genre, often with romantic or even pornographic themes. He uses himself and a model for all his paintings. Although his work is generally dismissed by art critics as being vulgar and devoid of imagination, he is one of the most commercially successful living artists. His original paintings now regularly fetch six figure prices, but he is thought to make more money from the sale of reproductions. Each year a new set of limited edition prints are published, and his most popular work, the Singing Butler, sells more posters and postcards than any other painting in the UK. On 21 April 2004 the original canvas of the Singing Butler sold at auction for £744,500 — in stark contrast to 1992 when Vettriano painted the picture and submitted it for inclusion in the Royal Academy summer show, only to be rejected.

Vettriano has studios in Scotland and London. He is represented by the Portland Gallery, London and includes Jack Nicholson and Terrence Conran amongst his collectors. In 2003 he was awarded the OBE. Vettriano's paintings hint at stories of seduction and betrayal in a style that has been compared to some of the great realist painters of America and England. His work has been likened to that of Walter Sickert, Edward Hopper and the photographer Brassai, and to some show influences from Scotland's distinctive Colourist tradition.

Jack Vettriano has reached a level of commercial success in recent years that any artist would envy. This Scottish born painter has become somewhat of a celebrity in England as he continues to have wildly popular exhibitions. Vettriano has had sell-out exhibitions in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and New York. Vettriano, a former mining engineer, works in a film noir style and somewhat sexual overtones can be found in many of his works. He is portrayed in many of his works as the "male predator". Jack Vettriano is exclusively represented by the Portland Gallery in London, England.

Biography of Wassily Kandinsky

The Russian painter and graphic artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was one of the great masters of modern art and the outstanding representative of pure abstract painting that dominated the first half of the 20th century. Wassily Kandinsky produced his early work in Russia, his mature and most revolutionary work in Germany, and his later work in France. He invented a language of abstract forms with which he replaced the forms of nature. His ultimate intention was to mirror the universe in his visionary world. He felt that painting possessed the same power as music and that sign, line, and color ought to correspond to the vibrations of the human soul.

Kandinsky was born on Dec. 4, 1866, in Moscow; his father was a tea merchant. When he was 5 the family moved to Odessa. The young Kandinsky drew, wrote poems, and played the piano and the cello. He grew up in a bourgois, cultured family and learned to play the piano and the cello. In 1886 he began to study law and economics at the Moscow University. After passing his exams he started a teaching career at the Moscow Faculty of Law. He had many interests and apparently a great gift to teach himself different skills.

In 1895 Kandinsky saw an exhibition of French impressionists in Moscow with paintings of Monet and others. He was at first confused and would later described how upset he was about Monet's painting The haystack. He thought that the painter had no right to paint things in a way that made it difficult to recognize the subject. In 1896, at the age of thirty, he decided to start a new career as an artist and went to Munich in Southern Germany. He enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts for four years until 1900. The art of Kandinsky established itself rather fast from 1903 on through many exhibitions in Europe. In 1911 he formed together with other ex-pressionist painters the group Der Blaue Reiter. Other members of the group were the Swiss painter Paul Klee, Franz Marc, August Macke, Gabriele Münter, Alexei von Jawlensky and Alfred Kubin. Kandinsky was the leading head of the group together with Franz Marc. His dominant position was not always to the delight of the other members.

Kandinsky became the theorist of abstract painting. In 1910 he created his first abstract work - a watercolor. In 1912 he published a book on the theory of abstraction. The Blue Rider had only a short life due to the outbreak of World War I. In 1914 Kandinsky returned to Russia where he stayed until 1921. In 1922 he came back to Germany to teach and work at the Bauhaus in Dessau until 1933. During the years at the Bauhaus the artist had his most productive and prolific time.

When the German Nazis came to power in 1933, all modern art was considered as entartet (degenerated art) and the Bauhaus was closed in 1933. Kandinsky's works were removed from German museums and confiscated. The artist's next destination was Neuiily near Paris where he remained until his death in 1944. At the time of his emigration to France, he was a well-established artist in the United States. Salomon Guggenheim became one of his collectors. Wassily Kandinsky continuously developed his style over the years but never made any abrupt changes as for instance Pablo Picasso did. His early paintings were expressive, colorful compositions but figural. The style reminds of Henri Matisse. From around 1910 the transition to abstract painting can be recognized. The figural elements were more and more reduced and finally they disappeared completely. Like a musician, he titled his art works impressions, compositions or improvisations. From around 1920 on, his style became rather geometrical.

Kandinsky's youth and life in Moscow brought inspiration from a variety of sources. As a child he would later recall being fascinated and unusually stimulated with color. This is probably due to his synaesthesia which allowed him to quite literally hear as well as see color. The fascination with color continued as he grew up in Moscow, although he seems to have made no attempt to study art. In 1889 he was part of an ethnographic group that traveled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. His study of the folk art in the region, in particular the use of bright colors on a dark background was reflected in his early work. Kandinsky would write a few years later that 'Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with the strings'.

Along with Piet Mondriaan and Kazimir Malevich, Kandinsky is considered a pioneer in abstract art, undoubtedly the most famous. He was a synaesthete who could, quite literally, hear colors. This effect of color was a major influence on his art, and he even named some of his paintings "improvisations" and "compositions" as if they were works of music and not painting. Works by Kandinsky have been recently sold for as much as US$25 million. Probably the largest collection of his paintings may be seen in the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Biography of Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was one of the most innovative and controversial artists of the early twentieth century. Born in 1862 the son of an engraver, Klimt attended the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Vienna for seven years starting in 1876. In 1879 he formed with his brother Ernst and a co-student, Franz Matsch (1861-1942), a studio where they executed designs primarily of other artists--for instance, the graffiti designs of Laufberger for the Art Historical Museum and for Hans Makart (1840-1884). In 1886 their own designs for the decorations of the staircases for the Burgtheater were given a prize, and in 1890 Klimt received the Emperor's Prize for painting. In 1892 his brother Ernst died. In 1893 Klimt was nominated for professor at the Vienna Academy but was rejected. In 1894 he obtained the commission to paint the wall decorations for the great hall of the University of Vienna and at the sam.

In the 1880s and 1890s he produced murals for public buildings -- including Vienna's Burgtheater and new Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum) -- in the prevailing classical-realist style. Klimt's style grew increasingly experimental, however, and his murals for Vienna University, commissioned by the State in 1894, were roundly attacked by critics for their fantastical imagery and their bold, decorative style. Partly in response to this reaction, in 1897 Klimt helped form the Secession, a group of artists dedicated to challenging the conservative Academy of Fine Arts. Influenced by European avant-garde movements represented in the annual Secession exhibitions, Klimt's mature style combined richly decorative surface patterning with complex symbolism and allegory, often with overtly erotic content. After 1900 he concentrated on portraits and landscapes, although he also produced two of his greatest murals during this period -- The Beethoven Frieze, exhibited at the Secession in 1902, and decorations for the Palais Stoclet in Brussels (1904-1911). Klimt spent most of his summers on the Attersee, near Salzburg, where he drew inspiration for many of his landscapes, and where he painted some of his best-known works, including The Kiss of 1907-8.

From 1876 to 1883 Gustav Klimt attended the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts and from 1879 he started working with his brother Ernst Klimt on decorative paintings, designed for public buildings in Vienna, Bucharest and Rijeka. In 1897 Klimt was one of the founding members of the Vienna Secession. He was chairman until he resigned in 1905. Gustav Klimt created a new and highly individual style in the Austrian art world. He broke with the conventional academic ideals. Especially his later work is defined by the use of intensive colors, golden backgrounds, ornamental layouts, erotic elements and heavy symbolism. Although his work was controversal, he had a strong influence on the cultural world of his time and established himself as a very popular painter in the Viennese society. In Vienna's museums you can admire some of his most famous works. The Museum of Applied Arts is proud of its collection. At the Belvedere you can take in 'Der Kuss' (The Kiss) in all its glory.

His major works include paintings, murals, sketches and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. At the personal request of John D. Rockefeller, Klimt designed the seal of the University of Chicago in 1907, despite having never visited the United States. Klimt was one of the founding members of the so-called Wiener Sezession (Vienna Secession) and of the periodical "Ver Sacrum". His work is distinguished by an elegant use of gold backgrounds and mosaic patterns. This can be seen in Judith I (1901, visible at right) and in The Kiss (1907). Art historians have noted a highly eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Klimt was also inspired by engravings of Albrecht Dürer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese woodcuts ("Ukiyo-e"). Klimt left the Sezession movement in 1908. He died in Vienna of pneumonia and was interred at the Hietzing Cemetery, Vienna.

Biography of Ansel Adams

Ansel Easton Adams was born on February 20, 1902, in San Francisco, California, near the Golden Gate Bridge. His father, a successful businessman, sent his son to private, as well as public, schools; beyond such formal education, however, Adams was largely self-taught. Charles and Olive Adams gave their son, Ansel, the freedom to grow and become whatever his intellect and talents would allow him to be. At twelve, unable to stand the confinement and tedium of the classroom, he utterly disrupted his lessons with wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers. His father decided that Ansel’s formal education was best ended. From that point forward, the boy was home-schooled in Greek, the English classics, algebra, and the glories of the ocean, inlets, and rocky beaches that surrounded their home very near San Francisco. He also made a serious study of the piano, which he thought was to be his avocation. Another rich source of learning was the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and contained exhibits and displays from around the world that fascinated young Ansel for a full year. His earliest aspiration was to become a concert pianist, but he turned to photography in the late teens of the century; a trip to Yosemite National Park in 1916, where he made his first amateurish photos, is said to have determined his direction in life. Subsequently, he worked as photo technician for a commercial firm. He joined the Sierra Club in 1919 and worked as a caretaker in their headquarters in Yosem.

Ansel Adams was not only a masterful photographic technician but a lifelong conservationist who pleaded for understanding of, and respect for, the natural environment. Although he spent a large part of his career in commercial photography, he is best known for his majestic landscape photographs. A commercial photographer for 30 years, he made visionary photos of western landscapes that were inspired by a boyhood trip to Yosemite. He won three Guggenheim grants to photograph the national parks (1944--58). Founding the f/64 group with Edward Weston in 1932, he developed zone exposure to get maximum tonal range from black-and-white film. He served on the Sierra Club Board (1934--71).

In 1916, during a family vacation in Yosemite National Park, Ansel was given a Kodak Box Brownie as a gift from his parents. It allowed him to record the wondrous images that he already perceived in the natural beauty around him, a process that would continue all his life. Given the position of Custodian of Yosemite’s Leconte Memorial (Joseph Leconte was an eminent geologist and conservationist.) in 1920, Adams wrote to his father that “...I want you to see what I am trying to do...the representation of material things in the abstract or purely imaginative way.”

After a prolonged and sometimes painful courtship, Ansel Adams and Virginia Best were married in January 1929, and for the first two years of their marriage, he wavered between his two possible career choices, music and photography. After viewing the wonderful work of a new friend, photographer Paul Strand, Adams decided on his course. Happily for all those who would enjoy his work in the future, he would be a professional photographer. A short time later, he joined Willard Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Henry Swift, Sonya Noskowiak, and Jon Paul Edwards to form “f/64”, a group dedicated to the concept of photography that looked like photography, not like an imitation of other art forms. Their exhibitions excited much comment, a great deal of which was negative, as their more simplistic, high realistic work was in stark contrast to the overdone photos in vogue at that time. March 1933 was an important time for Adams. It was then that he met the renowned photographer and patron, Alfred Stieglitz, husband of Georgia O’Keefe, owner of An American Place gallery, and a powerful influence on artists of that time. Stieglitz was favorably impressed with the young photographer and his work, and mounted an exhibition for him in November of 1936. Adams wrote in his 1985 autobiography “Steiglitz taught me what became my first commandment: “Art is the affirmation of life.”

The photography of Ansel Adams is virtually synonymous with the Sierra Nevada, the four hundred mile long, ten to fourteen thousand feet high mountain range that inspired the Sierra Club. John Muir, the Sierra Club’s first president and one of the greatest of America’s environmentalists, led the group to become a powerful force that influenced the United States government to establish the National Park Service. Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, and Glacier National Parks are all found within the Sierra, and their splendid beauty was recorded with enormous dedication and brilliance by Ansel Adams. Both the grandeur of the canyons stalked by gigantic looming thunderclouds (Tenaya Lake, Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park, c. 1946), massive rock formations shrouded with fragile morning mist ( El Capitan, Winter, Sunrise, Yosemite National Park, 1968) and the intricate composition and wonderful design of pine cones and eucalyptus leaves were recorded with painstaking and crystalline clarity for anyone to witness and enjoy. Adams said of his work: “My approach to photography is based on my belief in the aspects of grandeur and minutiae all about us”.

Adams also worked in the commercial field, taking pictures of everything from raisin bread to glassware to bathrobes for a Christmas catalog. It was not his favorite work, but it paid the rent and allowed him to continue his more artistic pursuits. Even his commercial work produced some powerful images (Worker and Turbine, Pacific Electric and Gas, 1939). Adams established a working partnership with another great photographer of the time, Dorothea Lange, with whom he collaborated on several magazine pictorials for Fortune and Time. The Fortune piece concerned the struggle between small family farms and large conglomerates over water rights in California’s San Joaquin valley; Life magazine contracted them for a study of the Utah Mormons. But Adams, though he admired the work done in that field, was not a proponent of documentary photography. He wrote to Lange in 1962 that he “...resent(ed) being manipulated into a politico-social formula of thought and existence....Is there no way photography can be used to suggest a better life-not just to stress the unfortunate aspects of existence...?”

In 1943, anxious to contribute in some way to the war effort, Adams sought and received a commission from Ralph Merritt, then director of Manzanar War Relocation Camp, to illustrate and record the lives of the Nisei, American-born citizens of Japanese descent who were interned there. He was tremendously impressed by the spirit of those people as they patiently awaited to return to their lives. “Born Free and Equal”, a compilation of photos of the camp with text written by Adams himself was released in 1944, but was badly received by those who only wanted to see the Japanese as the enemy. In 1949, Adams received another camera as a gift. Edwin Land, brilliant inventor of the Polaroid Land camera, invited the photographer to become a consultant. Adams was impressed by the camera and by Land’s determination to make photography an artistic form accessible to all. Although other professionals considered the Land camera to be little more than a toy, Adams continued to test the camera and promote its use by providing boxes of the film to his associates. Ultimately, he sent over three thousand memos to Polaroid.

Ansel Adams wanted his work to be seen by many, not just the few who could afford to purchase it. He chose three images...Moonrise, Winter Sunrise, and the vertical of Aspens...and arranged for them to be printed as easily affordable posters. This went so well that, in 1984, production begun of Ansel Adams calendars (still a favorite over desks and on kitchen walls everywhere). In 1979, Adams published his very successful book, Yosemite and the Range of Light, which was to sell over two hundred thousand copies. And in 1980, The Ansel Adams Conservation Award was established by the Wilderness Club, and Adams himself named as the first recipient. The citation read “...Ansel Adams-for your deep devotion to preserving America’s wild lands and to caring that future generations know a part of the work as it has been...”.

The work of Ansel Adams serves as a guide to what we once had, what still remains with us, and what we must not lose in the future. As he reminds us in his autobiography, “The only things...that compatibly exist in this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.”

Personal Details
1902 - Ansel Easton Adams born on February 20, at 114 Maple Street, San Francisco, the only child of Olive and Charles
1915 - Despises the regimentation of a regular education, and is taken out of school. For that year, his father buys him a season pass to the Panama-Pacific Exposition, which he visits nearly every day. Private tutors provide further instruction.
1916: Family Trip to Yosemite, Californina.
1925: Decides to become a pianist. Buys a grand piano.
1927: First acknowledged photograph.
1940 - Teaches first Yosemite workshop, the U. S. Camera Photographic Forum, in Yosemite with Edward Weston.
1953 he collaborated with Dorothea Lange on a Life commission for a photo essay on the Mormons in Utah
1962 Adams moved to Carmel, California, where in 1967 he was instrumental in the foundation of the Friends of Photography
1984 - Dies April 22 of heart failure aggravated by cancer.

Ansel Adams Citation
" The only things...that compatibly exist in this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit." - Ansel Adams

Biography of Claude Monet

Claude Monet was born in Paris, but grew up in Le Havre. His first artistic output were caricatures when he was a little boy. Close to his home was a little shop owned by a marine painter, Mr. Eugene Boudin. He recognized the talent of the boy and gave him his first painting lessons. Claude's family was not very happy about his vocation for painting. In 1860 he was drafted and had to go to Northern Africa for two years. After his return from Africa he went to Paris and took painting lessons at Gleyre's studio in Paris. At the studio he got to know Auguste Renoir, Sisley, Bazille and others. The nucleus of the future Impressionist movement was born. Soon Monet turned away from the traditional style of painting inside a studio. With his new friends he went outside in the Fontainebleau forest to paint in the open air. But the public and art critics ridiculed these new paintings that looked so different from any conventional art style.

In a caricature published in a newspaper, they were mocked with the proposal of chasing away the Prussian enemy by showing them Impressionist paintings - not very nice! When the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71 broke out, Monet chose to go to London with his friend Pissarro. There he saw the paintings of William Turner in the museums of London. After 1880 the public slowly begun to recognize the value of impressionism. Monet Claude and his friends could finally get some solid income from the sales of their paintings. In 1883 Monet rented a house in Giverny about 50 kilometers outside of Paris. Later, in 1890, he bought the house where he should stay until his death in 1926.
In 1890 Monet began to paint systematically the same subjects under different light conditions. The first subject were the haystacks behind his house. As the light changed during the day faster than he could paint, he worked simultaneously on several canvases. At the end he had painted 25 different versions of the hay stacks. More of the series paintings followed - the Rouen Cathedral, views of Venice or the Thames in London with the Houses of Parliament and other landmarks in London - often in the fog.

In his late years Claude Monet suffered from physical problems. After 1907 a bad eyesight and rheumatism made it more and more impossible for him to paint. But he continued until the year of his death. In February 1926, at the age of 83, he could finish the last great challenge of his life - a commission by the French government for 22 mural paintings of water lilies. On December 5, 1926 Claude Monet died from lung cancer.

Chronology of Claude Monet's Life Events
1840 Birth of Claude Oscar MONET on November 14th in Paris.
1845 The family moves to Le Havre.
1857 Death of his mother Louise Monet.
1858 Claude Monet meets Eugène Boudin who encourages him to paint out of doors.
1859 Monet comes to Paris and enters the Swiss Academy.
1860 Monet meets Pissaro and Courbet.
1863 Monet discovers Manet's painting and paints "en plein air" in the Fontainebleau forest.
1864 Monet stays in Honfleur with Boudin, Bazille, Jondkind. He meets his first art lover : Gaudibert.
1865 Monet's paintings are submitted for the first time to the official Salon. Camille Doncieux his lady friend and Bazille pose for Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe (the Picnic).
1867 Birth of his first son Jean Monet while Claude Monet is in Sainte-Adresse.
1868 Monet tries to commit suicide. He receives a pension from Mr Gaudibert. He paints in Fecamp and Etretat.
1869 Monet settles in the village of Saint-Michel near Bougival where he paints in company of Renoir.
1870 Monet marries Camille, Courbet is his witness. They take refuge in London when the war begins.
1871 Monet meets Durand-Ruel in London with Pissaro and Daubigny. Death of his father. Monet settles at Argenteuil after visiting the Netherlands.
1873 Monet meets Caillebotte.
1874 Monet exhibits "Impression : sunrise" at the first Impressionist exhibition in the studio of Nadar.
1876 Monet meets Ernest and Alice Hoschedé.
1877 Bankruptcy of Ernest Hoschedé. Monet paints the Saint-Lazare train station.
1878 Birth of Michel Monet, his second son. Monet and his family settle at Vétheuil in compagny of the family Hoschedé.
1879 Death of Camille.
1881 The family moves to Poissy.
1883 Monet rents a house at Giverny. He will stay there for 43 years.
1887 Monet exhibits in New-York thanks to Durand-Ruel.
1889 Monet exhibits with Rodin.
1890 Monet purchases the house in Giverny and begins the digging for the nympheas basin.
1891 Death of Ernest Hoschedé. Monet paints the series of Meules (Haystacks) and of Peupliers (Poplars)
1892 Monet paints the Rouen Cathedrals series. He marries Alice in July.
1894 Visit of Mary Cassatt and of Cézanne at Giverny. Rodin, Clémenceau and Geffroy are present.
1900 Monet paints several views of the Japanese bridge. He takes several trips to London and paints views of the Thames.
1904 Monet travels to Madrid and admires the paintings of Velasquez.
1907 First problems with his eyesight. Monet discovers Venice.
1911 Death of Alice.
1914 Death of Jean, Monet's eldest son. Blanche moves to live near Claude Monet.
1916 The artist decides to build a large studio of 23 m x 12m at Giverny.
1916 - 1926 Claude Monet works on twelve large canvas, The Water Lilies. Following the signing of the Armistice, Monet offers to donate them to France. Theses paintings will be installed in an architectural space designed specifically for them at the museum of the Orangerie in Paris.
1923 Monet is nearly blind. He has an operation from the cataract in one eye. His sight improves.
1926 In February Monet is still painting. But he suffers from lung cancer. He dies on December 5th. He is buried in a simple ceremony at Giverny. His friend Georges Clémenceau attends the ceremony.

Claude Monet Citations
"I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible." - Claude Monet