Nick Alm is a contemporary Swedish painter who studied in Florence and has exhibited in the US as well as Europe.

Alm’s primary focus is on figures, often in groups and in compositions that carry a narrative element. Many of the recent works highlighted on his website appear to be part of a series related to a wedding ceremony.

His approach involves subtle palettes, carefully structured value relationships and attention to finessed variation in edges.

In the softness of his edges and his painterly brush handling, I see the influence of 19th century painters like Sargent, Zorn, Chase, and Beaux. Whether these are actual influences, I don’t know, as that kind of information is in short supply on his website.

Unfortunately, his own site also displays inexplicably small images, given the beautiful handling evident in those larger images I can find. However, it does offer a nice selection of his work in oil and watercolor (including one of the iconic Antione-Louis Bayre lion sculpture here in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square), as well as a selection of drawings.

You can see larger reproductions of his paintings on some of the sites I’ve linked below.

Martin Dimitrov is a painter originally from Sofia, Bulgaria and now based in the U.S.

Self-trained as an artist, Dimitrov paints still life, landscape and figures. His still life compositions are subtle and contemplative, with muted value contrasts and restrained colors, often emphasizing the textural appeal of his subjects.

I particularly enjoy his paintings of simple subjects that are, in effect, outdoor still life, even though his close up subjects are actually still living.

Dimitrov has a blog on which he discusses his work and process, such as the setup for painting the grapefruits in the images above (third down) on location.

Martin Dimitrov is represented by Gallery Russia in Scottsdale, AZ.