Painting

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Phoenix Portrait of Elizabeth I

One of the most famous depictions of Elizabeth I is Nicholas Hilliard’s Phoenix Portrait, depicting the Queen with a pendant shaped like a mythical...

Guest Author 24 March 2025

European Art

Royaltastic Queens: Women Who Fought the Patriarchy and Won!

Follow us on a short historical tour of thriving royal women across Europe who enjoyed power and success on their own terms. How we measure royal...

Candy Bedworth 24 March 2025

European Art

Queen Elizabeth I – Portraits of the Last Tudor

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was the only surviving child of King Henry VIII of England and his second wife Anne Boleyn. Being a girl was hard...

Sarah Mills 24 March 2025

Alma Thomas, Tiptoe Through the Tulips, 1969, acrylic on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Alma Thomas

The style of Alma Thomas has been compared to Byzantine mosaics and the Pointillism of Georges Seurat. However, it firmly belongs to the Washington...

James W Singer 23 March 2025

Beatriz Milhazes, Sonho Tropical, 2017, White Cube Gallery, London, UK. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Sonho Tropical by Beatriz Milhazes

Sonho Tropical is a visual feast of abstract art infused with the passion for a Brazilian landscape. Beatriz Milhazes fuses European modernity with...

James W Singer 23 March 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Ten Largest by Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint was a Swedish abstract artist who was way ahead of her time. She might just be the first abstract painter in Western modern art...

Jinnie Stork 23 March 2025

Art movements quiz: Salvador Dali, "The Persistence of Memory", Quiz

QUIZ: Brush Up Your Art History! Guess the Art Movement

Tommy Thiange 22 March 2025

Quiz

QUIZ: Women Artists from the Rococo Era

Ela Bobek, 22 March 2025

Love Story

The Love of Ida Rubinstein and Romaine Brooks

Being a bisexual woman at the beginning of the 20th century was difficult. They were looked down on, they were scorned and discussed behind their...

Magda Michalska 21 March 2025

Artist Stories

The Dreamlike, Queer, and Femme Paintings of Marie Laurencin

Most art fans know the names of the male avant-garde artists in the early 1900s, but fewer people know of the women who mastered the craft. Marie...

Guest Author 21 March 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Portrait of Virginia Woolf by Vanessa Bell

Rebellious, creative and productive. Three of the so many adjectives to depict the two very intelligent artists sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia...

Merve Parla 21 March 2025

Cats

5 Women Artists Who Specialized in Cat Paintings—The Evolution of Cat Portraiture

It’s no mystery that artists loved cats. Throughout history, artists have made felines their studio companions and depicted them as they slept,...

Ela Bobek 20 March 2025