Leonor Fini

"Leonor Fini (1907–1996) is considered one of the most important women artists of the twentieth century and also one of the most misunderstood. Frequently labeled a surrealist she was never a member of that group or movement, preferring to stake her own claim on modernism with a vision that owes more to the farthest shores of her imagination than to any affiliation with art trends, schools or movements. The originality of her art as well as her intelligence, famous wit and charisma accorded her celebrity status in the Paris art world and beyond beginning in the late thirties.

Often eclipsing and even compromising her standing as a major artist was the originality and impact of her personal style. Her panache and glamour, once they found a place in the collective imagination of the time, turned her into a much-publicized fashion and feminist icon. Always controversial, with as many detractors as admirers, she lived and painted consummately on her own terms. Not always in critical favor, her art continues to fascinate, captivate and is currently the source of an enthusiastic re-evaluation.

Born in Buenos Aires of mixed Spanish, Italian, Argentine and Slavic blood, Leonor was raised in Trieste by her single mother where she absorbed the multi-ethnic and mixed cultural heritage of that cosmopolitan center. If her formal education ended when she was an adolescent, she nevertheless traveled widely in Italy, visited many of the museums of Europe and read voraciously from her uncle’s large library. As a young woman she exhibited her paintings in Trieste and Milan, received commissions for portraits and formed close friendships with some of the leading Italian artists of the day."(weinstein.com)

The fantastical world of Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama ( born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan
"Yayoi Kusama is the artist who filled up her world up with brightly painted spots. Suffering hallucinations and obsessive thoughts since she was a child, her career has been characterised by abrupt shifts in the areas in which she works – film, painting, poetry and ‘happenings’ to name just four of them. Its incredibly immersive nature, what she has occasionally referred to as 'obliteration', has remained the one constant - from her earliest, 1940s four-inch square drawings influenced by traditional Nihonga paintings, to the work she is still creating today, by all accounts, as formidable as ever at 80-years-old."(uk.phaidon.com)

 

Henry Musiałowicz - Contemporary Polish Art

 Henry Musiałowicz (b. January 5, 1914 in Gniezno, d. February 24, 2015) - Polish artist painter
"Henryk Musiałowicz is an artist recognised and valued around the world,man full of energy and eagerness to work who keeps searching, wondering at, admiring and getting bewildered by the surrounding world with a childlike curiosity"

Yohanan Simon

Yohanan Simon was a German-born, award-winning Israeli painter.
"Yohanan Simon was born in 1905 in Berlin. He attended the Max Beckmann Art School in Frankfurt and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Simon moved to Paris in 1927, where he attended the famed École des Beaux-Arts.In 1934 Simon moved to New York where he worked for Vogue Magazine and in 1936 he immigrated to Palestine where he was a member of Kibbutz Gan Shmuel up until 1953.Simon executed a number of murals for Israeli ships, public buildings and hotels, including Bank of Israel offices in New York and hotel on the Ivory Coast and illustrated books and designed stage-sets.He Participated in the Venice Biennale twice in the years 1948 and 1958 and in the Sao Paolo Bienale in 1953.Simon received the Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture four times in 1945, 1946, 1953 and 1961, in addition to the Ramat Gan Prize which he received in 1958 and the Histadrut Prize which he received in 1960.Yohanan Simon died in 1976."(dangallery.co.il)