Artist Stories

Lucian Freud Artist Stories

The Joy of Lucian Freud: Self-Portraits

Lucian Freud (1922-2011) is regarded as the pre-eminent British figurative painter of the last 60 years. Francis Bacon, two decades older, and David...

Guest Profile 10 February 2022

Artist Stories

Diego Rivera’s Life in Self-Portraits

Diego Rivera is mostly famous for his controversial mural for the Rockefeller family and for being the husband of Frida Kahlo. Yet in his lifetime,...

Magda Michalska 10 February 2022

Theater & Cinema

Djibril Diop Mambéty – The Poet of African Cinema

“It is good for the future of cinema that Africa exists.” Born on January 23rd, 1945, in Colobane, a small town south-west of Dakar,...

Montaine Dumont 6 February 2022

Vrubel. Mikhail Vrubel, The Swan Princess, 1900, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. Artist Stories

Genius of All the Art Forms: Mikhail Vrubel’s Fantastic Worlds

The place of Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910) in Russian art is exclusive and isolated. Legends already began to form around Vrubel during his lifetime. He...

Elizaveta Ermakova 20 January 2022

Asian Art

The Warli Painting Artist Jivya Soma Mashe

Jivya Soma Mashe is an internationally acclaimed Warli painting artist. A tribal artist from India, Mashe was known for wonderful Warli paintings,...

Urvi Chheda 7 January 2022

Artist Stories

Henri Matisse’s Cut-Outs

Coping with the difficulties of old age and illness in the years following World War II, Matisse nonetheless produced some of the most vibrant and...

Zuzanna Stańska 29 December 2021

Frans Post, View of Olinda, Brazil, 1662, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands Baroque

Frans Post, First Landscape Painter of the Americas

Frans Post has gone down in art history as the first trained landscape painter to work in the Americas. In 1636, as a young man of just 24, he...

Nicole Ganbold 27 December 2021

Artist Stories

Kandinsky’s World of Russian Fairy Tales

155 years ago today, Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow! He is chiefly associated with Der Blaue Reiter, an international group of avant-garde...

Magda Michalska 16 December 2021

Women Artists

Zinaida Serebriakova, First Famous Female Russian Artist

Zinaida Serebriakova (1884–1967) is mostly known for her painting At the Dressing-Table (Self-Portrait). The artist, looking from the...

Elizaveta Ermakova 10 December 2021

Women Artists

Lady in Blue: Yelizaveta Martynova, Ill-Fated Russian Female Artist

Can you name some female artists, and from Russia in particular? It’s difficult even for those who are really into art. This article tells the...

Guest Profile 10 December 2021

julian stanczak Artist Stories

Julian Stanczak and His Abstract Life

You may think that experiences such as forced labor in Siberia, losing the nerves in his dominant arm, or ending up in a refugee camp would have...

Magda Michalska 3 December 2021

European Art

Sir William Orpen: The Official Artist of the First World War

Initially known for society portraits, Sir William Orpen (the knighthood came after the end of the war) became an official artist of the First World...

Wendy Gray 11 November 2021