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Jane Crowther, 1962

Originally from York (UK), Jane Crowther studied Illustration BA(Hons) at Kingston Polytechnic.
In the early 1990’s, whilst based in North London, Jane designed a small range of greeting cards to supplement her meagre income as an artist, initially selling them at craft fairs alongside her large multi-media paintings.
The cards started to sell really well and Jane made the commercial decision to concentrate on her card designs.


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Alex Gross, 1968 | Pop surrealism painter

Alex Gross lives in Portland, Oregon. In 1990, he received a BFA with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Since then, he has had ten solo exhibitions at various galleries, and participated in dozens of museum and gallery exhibitions across the globe.
His 2017 exhibition with Corey Helford Gallery was his most recent solo exhibition.
In the summer of 2007, Alex's first retrospective museum show was held at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California.


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Joseph Lorusso, 1966 | Il pittore romantico

Di origini italiane, Joseph Lorusso è stato esposto all'arte in tenera età.
Attraverso diversi viaggi iniziali in Italia, i suoi genitori lo hanno introdotto alle opere dei maestri italiani.
Lorusso avrebbe guardato a queste influenze durante il suo primo sviluppo artistico e sono ancora evidenti nel suo lavoro odierno.
Durante gli anni della scuola, Lorusso si è specializzato in acquerelli e si considera un autodidatta come pittore ad olio.


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Eva Melhuish | Scandinavian Christmas cards

Eva Melhuish is an illustrator who has been published across Europe, the USA and has worked on global projects with UNICEF.
With a Swedish mother and English father, Eva is bi-lingual and has travelled extensively.
Her work reflects this diverse background and she illustrates a wide range of subjects, from natural history and horses to gardening and educational books.
Eva grew up in Sweden and her Scandinavian roots are a key influence.


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Ed Wheeler | Santa Classic

In a series of self-portraits dressed as Santa Claus, Philadelphia-based artist Ed Wheeler, photographer, incorporates himself in classical paintings from Botticelli to Caravaggio to Monet.
In so doing he transforms the masterworks of art history from the Renaissance to the Surrealists. Santa Classics, his derivative art series, is based on a digital photography process.
Wheeler’s goal is to pay homage to the original paintings while offering art lovers an additional reason to smile.

Francesco Hayez | The Kiss, 1859 | Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

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Molly Brett | Writer / Children's book illustrator

Molly Brett (1902–1990) was an English illustrator and writer of children's literature, best known for her anthropomorphic artwork.
Molly (Mary Elizabeth) Brett grew up in the English county of Surrey, surrounded by animals and nature.
Her mother, Mary Gould Brett, was a respected animal painter who encouraged her daughter to paint from life, and this is reflected in Molly's gift for making her animals look thoroughly naturalistic while giving them human characteristics and activities.


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Emily Dickinson | L’erba ha così poche occupazioni / The Grass so little has to do

L’erba ha così poche occupazioni -
un mondo di semplice verde
con solo farfalle su cui meditare
e api da ospitare -
non ha da fare altro che cullarsi
tutto il giorno ai suoni melodiosi
che le brezze portano leggere -
e accogliere in grembo la luce -

Camille Pissarro | Gardeuse de vaches, Eragny | Christie's

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Bertolt Brecht | Of all the works of man / Tra tutte le opere

Of all the works of man I like best
Those which have been used.

The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges
The knives and forks whose wooden handles
Have been worn away by many hands: such forms
Seemed to me the noblest.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) | Crouching Boy, 1524 | Hermitage, St. Petersburg

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Johannes Vermeer died on this day, in 1675

Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) passed away on this day December 15th, 1675.
He was 43 years old.
Vermeer’s small oeuvre is remarkable.
It is estimated that Vermeer created around 40 to 50 paintings, which is not a big number compared to other master painters of the time.
For example, Rembrandt made around 300 paintings and Frans Hals around 200.


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Wisława Szymborska / René Magritte | A Note / Una nota

Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;
to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;


to tell pain
from everything it's not;

to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;

and if only once
to stumble upon a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important.


René Magritte | L'Utopie, 1945 | Cleveland Museum of Art

Wisława Szymborska | Una nota

La vita - è il solo modo
per coprirsi di foglie,
prendere fiato sulla sabbia,
sollevarsi sulle ali;

essere un cane,
o carezzarlo sul suo pelo caldo;
distinguere il dolore
da tutto ciò che dolore non è;

stare dentro gli eventi,
dileguarsi nelle vedute,
cercare il più piccolo errore.


Un’occasione eccezionale
per ricordare per un attimo
di che si è parlato
a luce spenta;

e almeno per una volta
inciampare in una pietra,
bagnarsi in qualche pioggia,
perdere le chiavi tra l’erba;

e seguire con gli occhi una scintilla
nel vento;

e persistere nel non sapere
qualcosa d’importante.


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Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890

Van Gogh was fascinated with the labour and life of peasants, as expressed in art and literature.
In his paintings and drawings, he prominently featured working men and women.
He believed that to truly capture ‘the heart of the people’, an artist must immerse himself in their world.
He saw labourers as simple, kind-hearted and courageous people, often holding them in higher regard than those he termed "civilized".

Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890 | Kunsthaus Zürich

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Happy 194th Birthday, Emily Dickinson!

American poet Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886) was born 194 years ago, in 1830.
Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.
Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, only ten poems and a letter were published during her lifetime.
After her younger sister Lavinia discovered the collection of nearly 1,800 poems, Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death.

Bronze sculpture of Emily Dickinson by Jane DeDecker

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Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894

The Angel of Life (Christian Goddess) was commissioned in 1891 or shortly before by the banker Leopoldo Albini, together with the Pagan Goddess, now exhibited alongside it.
The two works were intended to form a diptych on the theme of women, a mystical mother in the case of the painting considered here, a worldly and lustful vision in the other.
The two figures are portraits of the family nanny, Baba, and of her son Gottardo (painted from memory, since he must have been twelve years old at the time).

Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894 (detaglio) | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milano

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Spinario (Boy pulling a thorn from his foot)

Boy with Thorn, also called Fedele (Fedelino) or Spinario, is a Greco-Roman Hellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy withdrawing a thorn from the sole of his foot, now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.
There is a Roman marble version of this subject from the Medici collections in a corridor of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
The sculpture was one of the very few Roman bronzes that was never lost to sight.
The work was standing outside the Lateran Palace when the Navarrese rabbi Benjamin of Tudela saw it in the 1160s and identified it as Absalom, who "was without blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head".

Lo Spinario | Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini

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Mahmoud Darwish | Un altro giorno verrà / Another day will come

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) è stato un poeta, scrittore e giornalista Palestinese.
È autore di circa venti raccolte di poesie, pubblicate a partire dal 1964, e sette opere in prosa, di argomento narrativo o saggistico.
È considerato tra i maggiori poeti in lingua araba.
Darwish ha vinto numerosi premi per le sue opere.
È stato giornalista e direttore della rivista letteraria "al-Karmel" (Il Carmelo), e dal 1994 era membro del Parlamento dell'Autorità Nazionale Palestinese.
È considerato poeta nazionale della Palestina per cui scrisse nel 1988 la Dichiarazione d'indipendenza, poi proclamata da Yasser Arafat.
I suoi libri sono stati tradotti in più di venti lingue e diffusi in tutto il mondo.

Mahmoud Darwish | Un altro giorno verrà

Shamsia Hassani | Hope is always beautiful even when you know you are the loser

Un altro giorno verrà, un giorno femmineo,
alla metafora trasparente,
compiuto, diamantino, di visita nuziale, soleggiato,
fluido, allegro. Nessuno sentirà
alcun bisogno di suicidio o di migrazione.

Poiché ogni cosa, fuori del passato, è naturale e vera,
sinonimo dei suoi attributi originari.


Come se il tempo oziasse in vacanza… "Prolunga il bel
tempo
della tua grazia. Illùminati nel sole dei tuoi seni di seta,
e aspetta l’arrivo della buona novella. Poi,
potremo crescere. Abbiamo ancora tempo
per crescere dopo questo giorno…"

Un altro giorno verrà,
un giorno femmineo,
dal cenno canterino e dal saluto e verbo azzurri.

Tutto è femmineo fuori del passato,
l’acqua scorre dalle mammelle della pietra.

Nessuna polvere, nessuna siccità, e nessuna sconfitta.
E le colombe dormono in un carro armato abbandonato
quando non trovano un piccolo nido
nel letto degli amanti.


Mahmoud Darwish | Another day will come

Another day will come, a womanly day
diaphanous in metaphor, complete in being,
diamond and processional in visitation, sunny,
flexible, with a light shadow. No one will feel
a desire for suicide or for leaving. All
things, outside the past, natural and real,
will be synonyms of their early traits. As if time
is slumbering on vacation…"


"Extend your lovely
beauty-time. Sunbathe in the sun of your silken breasts,
and wait until good omen arrives. Later
we will grow older. We have enough time
to grow older after this day…"/

Another day will come, a womanly day
songlike in gesture, lapis in greeting
and in phrase. All things will be feminine outside
the past. Water will flow from rock's bosom.

No dust, no drought, no defeat.
And a dove will sleep in the afternoon in an abandoned
combat tank if it doesn't find a small nest
in the lovers' bed…


Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as Palestine's national poet.
In 1988, Darwish wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, which was the formal declaration for the creation of a State of Palestine.
Darwish won numerous awards for his works.
In his poetic works, Darwish explored Palestine as a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.
He has been described as incarnating and reflecting "the tradition of the political poet in Islam, the man of action whose action is poetry".
He also served as an editor for several literary magazines in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Darwish wrote in Arabic, and also spoke English, French and Hebrew.

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Book sculptures by Jodi Harvey-Brown

- "I have always loved art, and I have always loved to read.
Books pull you into a new world, while art lets you see it.
It made sense to me that these two mediums should come together.
The books that we love to read should be made to come to life.
Characters, that we care so much for, should come out of the pages to show us their stories.
What we see in our imaginations as we read should be there for the world to see.
My book sculptures are my way of making stories come alive" - Jodi Harvey-Brown.


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7 masterpieces at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Frederick Carl Frieseke | The House in Giverny, 1912

When Frieseke first settled at Giverny in 1906, he stayed at Le Hameau (the hamlet) on the rue du Pressoir.
The two-story cottage surrounded by high walls on three sides enclosing a garden was next door to the home of Claude Monet and had previously been occupied by the American artist Lilla Cabot Perry.

The house shown in The House in Giverny, however, is most likely the Whitman house, the second of Frieseke's three Giverny residences.
Its green shutters and the distinctive open lattice-work of green trellises laden with flowers appear in a number of Frieseke's paintings, including Lilies, Tea Time in a Giverny Garden (both Daniel J. Terra Collection) and Hollyhocks, c. 1912-1913 (Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection).

The intimacy of Frieseke's small painting and his interest in decorative pattern links the artist more closely with the Nabi painters Vuillard and Bonnard than to his neighbour Monet or with Renoir, the French Impressionist he most admired.
The artist stated his creed published in a 1914 interview: "My one idea is to reproduce flowers in sunlight.
I do not suggest detail by form, as I have to keep it as pure as possible or the effect of brilliancy will be lost.
Of course, there is a limit to the strength of pigments, and one can but relatively give the impression of nature. I may see a glare of white light at noon, but I cannot render it literally [...]
I usually make my first notes and impressions with dashes of tempera, then I paint over this with small strokes in oil to produce the effect of vibration, completing as I go". | Source: © Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Frederick Carl Frieseke (American, 1874-1939) | The House in Giverny, 1912 | Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid