Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte was born November 21, 1898 in Lessines, Belgium, the son of a tailor. He began drawing at age 12 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. The death of his mother from suicide when he was fourteen influenced some of his paintings. Around 1916, he began publishing some of his drawings and began his career as a designer of wallpaper, posters, illustrations and sheet music covers. He was married for forty-five years to his wife, Georgette, whom he first met as a teenager and who modeled for him. Magritte's work was influenced by the techniques of Dada, Futurism and Cubism and he was greatly affected by the work of surrealists Giorgio de Chirico and Max Ernst. He became a member of a surrealist group  ... more »

Born June 8, 1922 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Leroy Neiman, began drawing at an early age. He left high school in 1942 to join the army, returning after four years to attend St. Paul Gallery and School of Art. He then attended the School of Art Institute in Chicago, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois. He taught fashion and figure drawing at the School of Art Institute for ten years before moving to New York City, where he resides today. In 1952, he begins exhibiting at the Twin Cities Show at Minneapolis School of Art and wins the Chicago Art Director's award. He continues to exhibit regularly in shows around the United States reaping rewards everywhere he goes. Neiman began an association with Playboy magazine in 1954 t ... more »

Claude Monet, 1840-1926 Claude Oscar Monet, was born November 14, 1840 in Paris, the son of a grocer and his singer wife. Monet grew up in Le Havre and attended the Le Havre Secondary School of the Arts, where he first became known for his charcoal caricatures. He was a mentor of Eugene Boudin who taught him to use oil paints and to paint en plein air or outdoors. In 1859 Monet attended the Swiss Academy in Paris, where he first met fellow artists, Manet, Sisley, Renoir and Pissarro, who would later be known as impressionists. In 1862, Monet joined a studio led by Charles Gleyre that encouraged artists to draw from live models. His first exhibition was two seascapes at the annual Paris Salon in 1865. In 1870, Monet married his model, Ca ... more »