Category: Gallery and Museum Art

John Collier was a Victorian neo-classical painter, apparently introduced early on to Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who did not take him on as a pupil, and influenced later in his career by the portrait paintings of John Everett Millais and his Pre-Raphaelite colleagues. Judging by the quotes from reviews written during his life and at the…

Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, is best known for his grand, sweeping views of his home city of Venice, intricately detailed and striking in their architectural fidelity. Most famous are his depictions of large scale public events, like A Regatta on the Grand Canal (image above, top, with detail, second down). Less well known,…

The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009 at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery was, as the name implies, held in 2009, but the exhibition of 49 works selected from the 3,300 entries is on display until September 6, 2010. The museum has posted the finalists on this page, click on the thumbnails for larger versions. The…

Enemy of the Impressionists, vilified by the modernists, autocratic teacher of Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins and several painters who would later be labeled American Impressionists, and one of the most controversial, successful and popular painters of the last half of the 19th Century, Jean-Léon Gérôme stood out from the labels of Orientalist and Academic that…

Sandra Wakeen is a Connecticut based painter who transitioned from a career in illustration and commercial art into portraiture, then added still life and landscape to her subjects. She has traveled and studied in Europe, most recently with Tony Ryder at Studio Escalier in France. Wakeen’s portfolio website showcases her crisp, sharply focused still lifes,…