40 Contemporary Great Masters of PORTRAIT PAINTING - The definitive book

This book offers you an insight into portrait painting through the art of 40 great artists who truly are masters of the genre. Whether in oil, pastel, watercolour or acrylic, on monumental or more intimate formats, delve into their masterpieces.

- 180 pages of masterpieces by some of today’s best painters.
- Bilingual version: English and French.

CONTENTS:
Historical Portfolio: Portraiture is one of the painting genres that has always fascinated artists the most. Let’s take a look back at five centuries of masterpieces…

DRAWING
Zimou Tan
Kate Zambrano
Amaya Gurpide
William Wu
Zin Lim

SELF PORTRAIT
Warren Chang
Lee Price
David Leffel
Michael DeVore
Gregory Mortenson

REALISM
Luca Indraccolo
James Lloyd
Stephanie Deshpande
Serge Marshennikov

TOWARDS ABSTRACTION
Jef Cablog
Benjamin Björklund

OIL PAINTING
Jie Gao
Ian Cumberland
Kyle Stuckey
Nicole Michelle Tully
Jennifer McChristian

PASTEL PAINTING
Sophie Burbaloff
Cuong Nguyen
Timothy Stotz
Denis Jacques
Alexandre GrangerGeorge Dawnay

WATERCOLOUR PAINTING
Mary Whyte
Liu Yi
Stephen Zhang
Stan Miller

OTHER MEDIUMS
Roberta Coni
Anna Dittmann
Robin-Lee Hall

Oscar Wilde once wrote that every portrait that is painted with feeling is in fact a self-portrait, because it reveals part of the artist’s identity. In fact, when painting or sculpting a model, artists are actually choosing to portray a part of themselves. In this book we have tried, above and beyond questions of style and different means of expression, to provide a snapshot of current artistic creation. By lifting the veil on an entire area of painting, our wish was to give you an overview of the practice of portraiture in every size, shape and colour. Although their styles and objectives may differ, the artists we have selected all share a certain attachment to and a deep respect for tradition, some opting to go against it and others to play with it. It is true that portraiture is a well-established genre. If we look back to the famous Fayum portraits painted in Roman Egypt during the first century of our era, nearly 2,000 years of faces look back at us over the centuries. We also wanted to honour these masters of the past, but with works that are just as striking today. That’s why you’ll find, for your pleasure, a portfolio with the paintings and drawings of Da Vinci, Rubens, Van Gogh (or on a much more recent note Anders Zorn) to name but a few. An entire chapter is devoted to the major mediums with masters of the genre who put oil, pastel and watercolour in the spotlight. Of course, we haven’t neglected drawing, other techniques such as egg tempera and acrylic, nor contemporary digital practices. We also wanted to pay tribute to all those artists who have embarked on the ambitious task of self-portraiture - either as a challenge or for practical reasons - by dedicating an entire chapter to the genre. Above all, we hope that this book will make you aware of the great vitality of contemporary art in general and portraiture in particular. If there is one message that all the artists assembled here offer us, it is that portrait painting has a bright future ahead of it. Here’s hoping you will enjoy reading this as much as we did writing it!
Laurent Benoist