Vincent van Gogh is the Worlds most recognized and popular artist but how many people can actually pronounce his name ? Here is an amusing and very useful little video featuring the master of immaculately correct English and Dutch pronunciation, Mr Stephen Fry . Try using it at your next soiree, waltz up to the local art bore and say ” David old chap, you will be able to tell me, who was that fellow who painted Sunflowers” then stand back and have a silent, secret, inner snigger, as he screws it up. Oh! how little fishes taste the best .   Vincent van Gogh Warning and...

The Scream What You Need To Know Roundup And Comment The Scream, One Hundred and Nineteen Million Nine Hundred Thousand Dollars plus fees and commissions, that’s what an unknown buyer paid for a pastel drawing, originally One of a set of Four copies and originally titled Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature) by the Norwegian Expressionist artist Edvard Munch. The iconic image had been kept in storage vaults at the Washington National Museum for over Seventeen Years with very few people ever knowing it was there, it was after all one of the Worlds most stolen paintings so I am sure,...

Thomas Kinkade Dead at 54. suspects, Valium,Ethanol and a troubled mind. By John Douglas : As you can imagine quite a cacophony of earnest opinion, sour grapes score settling and dark humor has been generated by the demise of Mr. Thomas Kinkade . Inevitably such a controversial “Art’s Character ” dying so young will bring back memories and draw parallels with Andy Warhol’s premature departure. We have our own opinions here at Kings Galleries and we share them with you at the  bottom of this compilation of what we consider the best of the net…   Thomas Kinkade died...

Paul Cadmus was one of Americas most controversial gay artists The American artist Paul Cadmus (B1904–D1999) was a Thirty year old unknown, outside of his own New York bohemian circles, painter in 1934, but then he became famous,  or should we say, infamous almost overnight when a major artistic scandal erupted over his risqué, and much publicized painting, The Fleet’s In! The painting ( shown above) depicts US sailors on rowdy and lecherous shore leave and it aroused the anger and ire of US Navy top brass, not only for its depiction of the Navy but also its obvious sexual connotations...

Who loves modern art? Here is a little piece of information we came across at Kings a few weeks ago and we thought you may find interesting, if not amusing. It’s an article from the British tabloid newspaper “The Daily Mail” and it concerns a study conducted at the very prestigious “Tate Britain” . Visitors to the Tate were involved, unbeknown to them ,in an experiment to determine whether the public is truly as interested in modern art as the art establishment would have us all believe . Old Art was once Modern Art. The Tate Britain houses the most comprehensive collection of British...

Thomas Kinkade, A View From The Brush-front By David Billet. There is no living artist, or for that matter any artist from the recent past, that I can think of, that can both generate such universal derision amongst other artists, whilst managing to engender such a passionate following amongst a certain section of the American buying public, non more than Thomas Kinkade. Thomas Kinkade is despised and disparaged with a passion by every contemporary artist I have ever met, and I have met a lot of them. Most working artists dismiss Thomas Kinkade and his success as a huge joke or con trick being...

Vladimir Zebek ,truly the finest Russian living artist, infamously cast in the stereotypical mold of the troubled artistic genius, but much loved by his collectors worldwide Vladimir Zebek (80) Born-1931. Zebek is Russia’s finest contemporary Seascape Artist. Often. and fairly compared to the great Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky. Russian Painter, 1817-1900, Zebek‘s Paintings are in Private Collections in over Fifty Countries Worldwide. Zebek’s canvases are full of passion, light and mysticism, his sky’s meet the sea where ghostly shadows play tricks on the eye and the imagination....

Own Your Own Famous Paintings Many people dream of owning one of the world’s most famous paintings, if you are in the fortunate position to be able to buy one you know you are investing in a piece of great art history and this is all part of the cache of owning beautiful famous paintings. It would be wonderful to own a priceless masterpiece by Bougereau, Rembrandt, or Goya or for that matter any another famous artist to enrich your life with beauty. Unfortunately, even if these masterpieces were affordable, many of these famous paintings are housed in national and city museums and cannot be...

Art Scam , A Clients Plea For Advice. Have You ever fallen victim to any kind of online scam ? It hurts, Art Scam s not only hurts your pride it can also severely damage your wallet. Don’t fall victim to an art scam like one of our clients did, here is our advice. Here at Kings Galleries we often receive mails from people wanting help with various questions they have about art and the paintings they own or want to own. Here is is our reply to one of the mails we received early this year from a would be client who was unfortunately swayed by a “Special Deal” offered to him from...

John Everett Millais the under rated pre-raphaelite master painter John Everett Millais was Born into an affluent middle class family in Southampton, Millais was a naturally talented artist with an engaging, unspoiled personality. Millais became the youngest pupil ever at the R.A. Schools when he arrived there aged 11, and the youngest to complete the course five years later. Technically Millais was extremely competent and was the star pupil, but he was criticized for lacking a certain breadth of imagination and vision, which is ironic given his future as a Pre-Raphaelite.”For the Summer...

The Art Nude The art nude in art has been a consistent theme and subject throughout the history of fine art. Be it religious art or portraiture, the art nude human form has always fascinated mankind, and been one of the enduring subjects of art.  Many of the masterpieces of fine art have featured the art nude. Consider Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel which depicts God stretching out his finger to bring life to the art nude naked Adam.  The statues of Venus and David both celebrate the perfection of the human form as the art nude.  And almost all the gods of Greek and Roman antiquity...

Artists To Admire, Philip de Laszlo. Philip de Laszlo was born in Budapest in 1869, the eldest son of a Jewish tailor, the family changed its name to László in 1891 The young Philip de Laszlo was apprenticed to a photographer while studying art, later he studied at Bertalan Székely and Károly Lotz in Budapest, eventually earning a place at the National Academy of Art, he then mover to Munich, at the time one of the centers of European culture and patronage . Philip de Laszlo s portrait of Pope Leo XIII earned him a Grand Gold Medal at the Paris International Exhibition in 1900. In 1907 he...

Artists we Admire Rossetti,Dante Gabriel. Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, who later changed the order of his names to stress his kinship with the great Italian poet, was born in London May 12, 1828, to Gabriele and Frances (Polidori) Rossetti. The young Rossetti was encouraged by his cosmopolitan parents to use his vivid imagination to develop his passionate interests of drawing and writing. All his life Rossetti was torn between his twin loves of poetry and painting – to such an extent that he regarded the two disciplines as inseparable. Arguably, with his facility and interest in both...