Niki de Saint Phalle, French-American sculptor, painter, filmmaker & author of colorful hand-illustrated books. She was well known in Europe, but her work was little-seen in the US, until her final years in San Diego.
“The French-born, American-raised artist is one of the most significant female & feminist artists of the 20th century, and one of the few to receive recognition in the male-dominated art world during her lifetime”.
Zhang Hui i- a Chinese Asian modern & contemporary painter that’s been included in exhibitions throughout China & Europe & has established herself as an important figure in the contemporary Chinese art world. The characters in her works are all childlike & lovely, with dark skin & a round face, all glowing from her childhood memories.
Here’s a wonderful & inspiring Swedish painter, Johan Einar Jolin, one of my favourites, born in Stockholm (1890 – 1976) & studied at the Swedish Artists’ Association’s painting school with his friend Isaac Grünewald, to then continue his art studies for six years under Matisse in Paris.
Jolin’s motif consists mainly of portraits & still lifes, but also city views, all in naive style. The naive shapes convey wonderful colors with a clean, simple & elegant expression.
Inspired by Hilma af Klint – the Swedish artist & mystic whose paintings were amongst the first abstract art. She came into contact with nature at an early stage in her life & her association with natural forms became an inspiration in her work.
She studied in Stockholm at the Academy of Fine Arts for five years. Before she died in 1944, she stipulated that her work couldn’t be shown for 20 years & made it clear that many of her paintings couldn’t be sold individually.
Her work remained outside the spotlight for decades – until, in 2013, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm mounted a traveling retrospective that became a surprise hit.
Six years later, the Guggenheim Museum in New York had its own retrospective, which closed in 2019 & received 600,000 visitors, making it the most viewed exhibition the museum had ever done.
Painter, Illustrator & designer, born 1888 – studied art at in Stockholm. Influenced by the atmosphere of creative freedom & admiration for French painting, he continued his studies in the Studio of his admired Matisse.
The influence of the French master was instrumental in the formation of vivid color palette that distinguished his work. Another master, Paul Cézanne, contributed to Grünewald’s rigour geometrical in drawing, to simple geometric forms. Some of his most famous works are Portrait of Ivan in an armchair & Bullfighting.
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