Josef Mikl

Josef Mikl (August 8, 1929 – March 29, 2008) was an Austrian abstract painter of the Informal style.Born in Vienna, he received his first training at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, studying at the prominent Viennese academy from 1949 to 1956 under Josef Dobrovský.Collaborating with Friedensreich Hundertwasser at the Vienna Art Club, Mikl later was a member of the Galerie St. Stephan group. In 1968 Mikl, well known in Austria, represented his home country at the 34th Biennale in Venice.

 Classified as an Informal and Modernist artist, Mikl himself despised his artwork being placed under a specific label, calling it "an insult" in an undated interview. He worked in oil, pastels and water colors, as well as sculptures and drawings that either stood alone or served as illustrations in a book or decorations in a church. Mikl is best known for renovating the Redoutensaal in Vienna's Imperial Palace after it was destroyed in a 1992 fire. The hall once served as a venue for the first performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's 8th Symphony as well as a summit between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita S. Krushchev and was reopened in 1997 with vibrant reds and yellows depicting notable themes and figures of Austrian literature, all of Mikl's design.Josef Mikl died of cancer on March 29, 2008. His funeral was held on April 3 though his death was not announced until the next day, in accordance with Mikl's wishes.Survivors include his wife, Brigitte Bruckner, and their 20-year-old daughter Anna Mikl.Wikipedia

Paul Guiragossian

Paul Guiragossian (1925 – November 20, 1993) was an Lebanese Armenians painter.
Born to Armenian parents, survivors of the Armenian Genocide, Paul Guiragossian experienced the consequences of exile from a very tender age. Raised in boarding schools, Paul grew up away from his mother who had to work to make sure her two sons got an education. As a child Paul remembers looking out from the window watching children flying their kites and they would always ask him to draw theirs because he did the most beautiful and colorful designs. It’s then that he realized he had a special talent and his love for art became an indispensable need. In the early 1940s Paul and his family moved to Jaffa where he attended Studio Yarkon to start improving his passion of painting. In late 1947, the family moved again and settled in Lebanon.

In the 1950s Paul started teaching art in several Armenian schools and worked as an illustrator. He later started his own business with his brother Antoine painting cinema banners, posters and drawing illustrations for books. Soon after he was discovered for his art and introduced to his contemporaries after which he began exhibiting his works in Beirut and eventually all over the world. In 1956 he won the first prize in a painting competition, which landed him a scholarship by the Italian government to study at the Academia di Belle Arti di Firenze (The Academy of Fine Arts of Florence). While in Florence, Paul had multiple exhibitions starting with a solo show in 1958 at the Galeria D’Arte Moderna “La Permanente”. In 1962, Paul was granted another scholarship, this time by the French Government, to study and paint in Paris at Les Atelier Des Maîtres De L’Ecole De Paris and by the end of that year he had a solo exhibition at the Galerie Mouffe. 

By the mid 1960s Guiragossian had grown to become one of the most celebrated artists in Lebanon and eventually of the Arab world and even though war broke out in the early 1970s, his attachment to Lebanon grew bigger and his works became more colorful with messages of hope for his people. In 1989 Paul went to Paris to exhibit his works in La Salle Des Pas Perdus in UNESCO and resided in the city with part of his family until 1991. At the end of that 1991 Guiragossian had a solo exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe. This exhibition was extended and marked the very first solo show at the IMA for any artist. Paul died November 20, 1993, in Beirut, after completing a magnificent oil painting which he revealed to his family to be his best work yet. The family agreed to entitle the painting "L'Adieu" and it remains unsigned in the Guiragossian Family Collection.Wikipedia

Louis Schanker

Louis Schanker (1903–1981)was an American abstract artist born in 1903. He grew up in an orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents were of Romanian descent. At an early age he had an interest in both art and music

Schanker's has remained popular and there is still continuing interest in his works. In 1989, summing up Schanker's career for a book on American abstraction, Virginia Mecklenburg wrote of "an animated expressionism that aims at a fundamental emotional structure".

He married stage actress and singer Libby Holman on December 27, 1960. She was a fierce champion of social causes and was an early supporter of civil rights. It was due to her generosity that in 1959 the young Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta, were able to travel to India to study firsthand the non-violent techniques espoused by Gandhi. King was always grateful to Libby for giving him this pivotal opportunity. King, Coretta and Libby and Schanker would remain lifelong friends.Wikipedia