creator
François Auguste René Rodin was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, and deeply pocketed surface in clay. He is known for such sculptures as The Thinker, Monument to Balzac, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, and The Gates of Hell.
Many of Rodin's most notable sculptures were criticized, as they clashed with predominant figurative sculpture traditions in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodin's most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory. He modeled the human body with naturalism, and his sculptures celebrate individual character and physicality. Although Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, he refused to change his style, and his continued output brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community.
Johann Rasso Januarius Zick was a German painter and architect. He is considered to be one of the main masters of the Late-Baroque.
Emilie Preyer was a German painter of the last third of the nineteenth and first third of the twentieth centuries. She is known as a painter and a master of still life.
Emilie Preyer studied painting under her father Johann Wilhelm Preyer and worked in the same meticulous technique. She created still lifes with fruit and flowers. Over 250 of her paintings are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as in private collections in the United Kingdom and the United States.
