Balbusso Twins, le gemelle dell'illustrazione

Anna ed Elena Balbusso, gemelle, vivono e lavorano a Milano.

Diplomate in pittura all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, dal 1994 operano come illustratrici freelance per la pubblicità e l’editoria sia in Italia che all’estero.

Dal 1998 illustrano libri per ragazzi e copertine con varie case editrici.

Dal 2003 lavorano con testate francesi nell’ambito della comunicazione e dei magazine.

Nel 2006 hanno iniziato nuove collaborazioni nell’editoria per ragazzi in Francia ed in Corea del Sud.

Konstantinos Kavafis | Itaca / Ithaca / Ιθάκη, 1911

"Ithaca" /Ιθάκη è una poesia del poeta greco Konstantinos Kavafis, comunemente considerata la sua opera più popolare.

Fu pubblicata per la prima volta sulla rivista Grammata (Γράμματα, "lettere") della Alessandria. Basata sul viaggio di ritorno di Ulisse nell'Odissea di Omero, la poesia è intitolata all'isola omonima di Itaca.

Una prima versione della poesia, intitolata "Una seconda Odissea" fu scritta nel 1894.

Ithaca ottenne un pubblico globale dopo la sua lettura del 1994 al funerale dell'ex first lady degli Stati Uniti, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Se ti metti in viaggio per Itaca

augurati che sia lunga la via,

piena di conoscenze e d’avventure.

Shamsia Hassani, 1988 | Afghanistan's First Female Street Artist

"I want to colour over the bad memories of war on the walls, and if I colour over these bad memories, then I erase [war] from people's minds.

I want to make Afghanistan famous for its art, not its war" - Shamsia Hassani.

Afghan artist Shamsia Hassani risks all to bring color to war-torn Kabul with her street art and murals.

Born April 1988, she is the first female graffiti artist of Afghanistan.

Through her artworks, Shamsia portrays Afghan women in a male dominant society.

Robert Frost | La mia Ospite di Novembre / My November Guest

Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) è stato un poeta e drammaturgo Statunitense, considerato tra i maggiori intellettuali del Novecento.

Frost è considerato uno dei più influenti e popolari poeti della storia statunitense; vincitore di quattro Premi Pulitzer e premiato con numerosi altri riconoscimenti, le sue raffigurazioni realistiche della vita rurale e la sua padronanza del discorso colloquiale americano lo resero il poeta più di successo del suo tempo.

Quando lei, mio Dolore, è qui con me,

pensa che questi giorni melanconici

e piovosi d’autunno sono splendidi

come possono i giorni essere; ama

la nuda pianta che appassisce, e va

sull’umido sentiero in mezzo all’erba.

Lawton Silas Parker | Autumn Sunlight

Wisława Szymborska | La memoria / Memory finally

La memoria finalmente ha quel che cercava.

Si è trovata mia madre, mi è apparso mio padre.

Ho sognato per loro un tavolo, due sedie. Si sono seduti.

Erano miei di nuovo e per me di nuovo vivi.

Sono balenati con le due lampade sul viso

all'imbrunire, come a Rembrandt.

Victor Nizovtsev

The Tragic Life of Van Gogh by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam

Watch beauty directly;

See them through your soul’s door.

Don’t let technology snatch

the little time you have to relish real beauty.

Maybe this chance won’t repeat for us ever.

Know the value of encountering true beauties,

and don’t turn your back on them. | by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam.

Edgar Maxence | Il ritrattista romantico

Il pittore Francese Edgard Maxence (1871-1954) ha studiato con Jules-Élie Delaunay e Gustave Moreau.

I suoi contemporanei furono Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, Albert Marquet, Henri Evenepoel ed altri.

La tecnica pittorica di Edgard Maxence combinava pennellate relativamente spesse con una certa purezza di linee.

Lui utilizzava la foglia d'oro, che enfatizzavano scene mistiche primitive, nonostante i volti realistici.

Georges Girardot | Le reverences de la lune, 1890

Georges Marie Julien Girardot (1856-1914) was a French figure, landscape and marine painter.

Girardot was born in Besançon, Doubs on 4 August 1856.

He was trained by the artist Albert Maignan in Paris.

Girardot was active in Paris, painting mostly genre paintings, female nudes and landscapes.

William Bouguereau | Joueur de flûte, 1878

In his accounts, Bouguereau gave a title of Tête d’enfant avec une flûte to the present work, yet the instrument depicted more closely resembles a piffero, an Italian folk instrument related to the modern oboe, which was used by the musical troupes who would descend from the hills around Rome to celebrate Christmas.

Both the music and the sweet expression of Bouguereau’s young musician likely evoked the artist’s happy memories of travel to Italy in the late 1840s.

Bouguereau had painted young musicians as early as 1870 in works like Pifferaro (Bartoli, no. 1870/80, and sold in these rooms April 18, 2007, lot 90).

Hermann Krüger | Park near Rome, 1899

"Park near Rome" (View of the Alban Hills) is an 1899 oil painting by German landscape painter of the Düsseldorf School Hermann August Krüger (1834-1908).

After initially studying art in Munich, Hermann Krüger continued his education in Düsseldorf from 1867 onwards, having spent time in Dresden and Berlin in between.

There, Kruger was a private pupil of Oswald Achenbach and undertook numerous study trips to Italy and Egypt.

James Tissot | Holiday, 1876

The autumn sun glows through the yellow leaves of the horse chestnut tree in this picnic scene.

The setting is the garden of James Tissot’s house in St John’s Wood, London, very close to Lord’s cricket ground.

Artist: James Tissot (1836-1902)

Medium: Oil paint on canvas

Dimensions support: 762 × 994 × 20 mm frame: 925 × 1185 × 95 mm

Collection: Tate

Karol Bąk, 1961

Karol Bąk artista - pittore, illustratore e grafico. I suoi dipinti sono caratterizzati da illusione e surrealismo.

Si è diplomato alla Scuola Secondaria di Belle Arti di Poznań come espositore di interni.

Nel 1984 ha iniziato gli studi presso la Facoltà di Grafica della Scuola Superiore Statale di Belle Arti (ora Accademia di Belle Arti di Poznań).

Si è laureato con lode nel 1989 ottenendo due diplomi sia in grafica con il professor Tadeusz Jackowski, che in disegno con il professor Jarosław Kozłowski.

Lionel Walden | Breaking Waves

Lionel Walden (1861-1933) was an American painter active in Hawaii, Cornwall and France.

He was born in Norwich, Connecticut.

He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there.

Nikolay Dubovskoy | Hushing (Calm Before the Storm), 1890

Isaac Levitan: "Not everyone can convey such a capture from nature itself, like "Calm before the storm", where you feel not the author, but the elements themselves".

The painting Притихло" ("hushing" or "silencing", before the storm) display at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, is a masterpiece of Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy / Николай Никанорович Дубовской (1859-1918), a Russian landscape painter, associated with the Peredvizhniki (The Itinerants) - group of Russian realist artists who formed an artists' cooperative in protest of academic restrictions; it evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions in 1870.

The artist's most famous and landmark painting, which placed his name among the most famous Russian landscape painters.

It marked the beginning of the "Landscape of Mood" genre, developed by Nikolay Dubovskoy and Isaac Levitan.

Nikolay Dubovskoy | Calm Before the Storm, 1890 | State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Alphonse Spring | Violin Player, 1890

Alphons Spring (1843-1908) was a genre painter of the Munich School and co-founder of the artists' society Allotria in Munich.

Alphons Spring, who wrote himself Alfons Spring from around 1878, was born in Liepaja in Latvia and studied at the art school and academy in Saint Petersburg.

He moved to Munich 1870 where he became a student of Professor Wilhelm Diez.

Constance Marie Charpentier | Melancholy, 1801

Constance Marie Charpentier (1767-1849) was a French painter.

She specialized in genre scenes and portraits, mainly of children and women.

She was also known as Constance Marie Bondelu.

Constance-Marie Charpentier | Melancholy, 1801 | Musée de Picardie, Amiens

Carolus-Duran | Portrait of Édouard Manet, 1880

Carolus-Duran (1837-1917), a successful society portraitist, painted this informal view of his friend Édouard Manet (1832-1883) at a villa outside of Paris.

Manet was known for his impeccable grooming, but Carolus-Duran portrays him in a moment of ease, flushed by the effects of a warm afternoon, wearing a straw boater pushed back on his forehead.

Carolus Duran | Portrait of Édouard Manet, 1880 | Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Working quickly, he captures Manet’s appearance and mood with broad, summary strokes, painting him “à la Manet”-employing his friend’s loose brushwork rather than his own tighter style. | Source: © RISD Museum of Art

Anthonore Christensen | Flowers painter

Anthonie Eleonore Christensen (1849-1926), generally known as Anthonore Christensen, née Tscherning was a Danish flower painter.

She exhibited from 1867 at Charlottenborg, winning the medal of the year in 1893.

As a painting teacher, her students included Queen Louise and Queen Olga of Greece.

Wisława Szymborska | Domande poste a me stessa / The questions you ask yourself

Qual è il contenuto del sorriso

e d’una stretta di mano?

Nel dare il benvenuto

non sei mai lontana

come a volte è lontano

l’uomo dall’uomo

quando dà un giudizio ostile

a prima vista?

Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012)

Pablo Neruda | Un giorno / Un dia / One day..

Un giorno moriremo entrambi,

l’uno lontano dall’altra,

e nessuno si ricorderà più di noi.

Nessuno.

William Brymner | In the Orchard Spring, 1892