Diego Rivera (1886-1957): Portrait of Two Women (wife Angelina Beloff and friend Dolores Bastian), 1914 (Oil on canvas, The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas) - In 1913, his first Cubist works were shown at the Salon, demonstrating a much brighter palette and bolder paintwork than that of his fellow Cubists. In 1914, the artist held his first solo exhibition, shortly before the outbreak of WW I. - In 1915, Rivera had his first exhibition in the United States, at the Modern Gallery in New York… With the war dragging on, he returned once more to Paris, where he became one of the leaders of the “Classicist” Cubist group, which included artists such as Juan Gris, Gino Severini and Jean Metzinger…

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925): The Garden Wall, 1910 (Translucent and opaque watercolor, with wax resist, over graphite on paper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) - Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: To live with Sargent’s water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, „the refluent shade” and „the Ambient ardours of the noon”…

Marc Chagall (1887-1985): The Blue Violinist 1947 (Oil on canvas) - Chagall incorporated a number of 20th century modern art movements into his work to give us a portrayal from multiple angles resulting in a personal symbolic synthesis that might best be described as “psychological cubism”… A reoccurring element in his work is music and musicians. Chagall felt them to be an important part of the tapestry of his culture…

The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener… Alessandra Ferri (b. 1963) is an Italian prima ballerina, she danced with the Royal Ballet (1980–1984), American Ballet Theatre (1985–2007)…

(Alessandra Ferri in Giselle - American Ballet Theatre, 2005 - Photo Fabrizio Ferri)

Henri Manguin (French, 1874-1949): Model in a Painter’s Studio c.1900 - Regarded as one of the creators of the Fauve movement, Manguin was influenced by Cezanne: illogical construction, harmonious colour tones, and importance of ornament. Manguin had his own touches in the use of fiery and tumultuous tonal strengths…

In 1962 Elaine de Kooning was commissioned to paint a portrait of President John F. Kennedy to be hung in the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri… De Kooning was one of the early participants in the Abstract Expressionist movement…

(Painter Elaine de Kooning working on John F Kennedy painting in Manhattan studio, 1964, New York, NY. - Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, LIFE)

Károly Ferenczy (Hungarian, 1862–1917): The Woman Painter, 1903 (Oil on canvas, Hungarian National Gallery) - The model of “Woman Painter” was a woman from Nagybánya, who is portrayed in other Ferenczy works… The composition is built on the rhythm of the shadows of the tree trunks and sunny strips. The paintress is standing in the middle of dazzling greens on the hill-side. Colours of the picture are identical with those on the palette…

Giovanni Giacometti (Swiss, 1868-1933): Theodora, 1914 (Oil on canvas) - The young Theodora seems to be completely absorbed in the reading of the letter in her hand, unaware that she is being watched… Her full copper red hair plays around her shoulders and lit in a beautiful contrast to the bright flesh tones which take the color of the gold-green bedspread…

Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883): Claude Monet Painting on His Studio Boat, 1874 (Oil on canvas) - Here Manet has captured Monet and his wife Camille in the boat which the painter used as a floating studio, rowing it up and down the Seine and stopping whenever he spotted a promising subject… Monet was often desperately poor, but could always rely on a loan from Manet – who was equally unpopular but less dependent on art for his income…

Alphonse Mucha (Czech, 1860–1939): Spring - from the Four Seasons cycle, 1908 (Stained Glass Museum, Navy Pier, Chicago) - Mucha’s works frequently featured beautiful young women in flowing, vaguely Neoclassical-looking robes, often surrounded by lush flowers… Mucha’s style was given international exposure by the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris, of which Mucha said, “I think (the Exposition Universelle) made some contribution toward bringing aesthetic values into arts and crafts”…

Leon Kroll (American, 1884-1974): Three Women - In Paris, Kroll enrolled at the Académie Julian under Laurens… Back in New York, Kroll met George Bellows at an artist’s studio party in 1910. Kroll’s popularity as a realist artist grew and his lush brushwork, exciting compositions, and Fauve palette gained him the opportunity to exhibit at the famous 1913 Armory Show…

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890): Oleanders, 1888 (Oil on canvas) - For Van Gogh, oleanders were joyous, life-affirming flowers that bloomed “inexhaustibly” and were always “putting out strong new shoots.” In this painting of August 1888 the flowers fill a majolica jug that the artist used for other still lifes made in Arles… They are symbolically juxtaposed with Émile Zola’s La joie de vivre…

Félix Edouard Vallotton (Swiss-born French, 1865-1925): La Lecture Abandonnée, 1924 (Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts) - Although this work is an exception, in his last years Vallotton concentrated especially on still lifes and on “composite landscapes” which were landscapes composed in the studio from memory and imagination…

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954): Breakfast, 1920 (Oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art) - Breakfast depicts 19-year-old model Antoinette Arnoux in the artist’s opulently furnished room at the Hôtel de la Méditerranée… Seated, with a book on her lap, Arnoux has a contemplative, self-absorbed pose, as if lost in thought… The color, pattern, and brushstrokes that animate the room around Arnoux are typical of Matisse’s Nice period…

Chelsea Keefer - Tulsa Ballet, Oklahoma, US. (Photograph by Richard Calmes) - Tulsa Ballet corps member Keefer launched her professional career in 2011 thanks to YAGP. “I’d done YAGP before, mostly to gain experience, but last year I took it very seriously as a job opportunity,” Keefer says. “I worked on cleaning my class technique in addition to my competition variations.” After a YAGP-hosted audition class in New York City where artistic directors lined the walls, she was offered a contract for Tulsa Ballet’s second company…