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Richard F. Lack (1928-2009) was somehow able to make a living as a professional artist in the second half of the 20th century while painting in an academic style. A good deal of background information about him can be found here and here : both are well worth reading. Lack at one point classified his type of painting as "Classical Realism," and some Wikipedia information on the subject is here . If you happen to be in the Pacific Northwest before 15 November, you might be able to visit an exhibit of his work at the Maryhill Museum located about 90 miles up the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. I greatly respect Lack's talent and courage in opposing dominant fads and fashions in painting. On the other hand, his style is a little too "finished" for my taste. Also, I find it hard to like the Symbolic subjects that he began to paint around 1970 and continued to do for much of the rest of his career. Below are images of some of his paintings along with a few

Wilhelm Trübner (1851-1917) created smoothly-painted scenes early in his career, but by his 30s had drifted to styles with increased emphasis on what are called "formal qualities" of a painting (the parts not related to depiction of a subject). This concept eventually evolved into pure abstraction, whereby all a painting had were such qualities (characteristics) and no subject matter. In Trübner's case, he mostly made paintings where brushwork was strongly evident, many brushstrokes done using wide, flat brushes. I posted about this kind of brushwork here , and included one of Trübner's paintings. His Wikipedia entry is here , and from it you might want to go to the German entry, which has more detail. Below are images of some of Trübner's paintings in this style, most of which are from around the year 1900. Gallery Cronberg in Taunus - 1896 The kind of brushwork I've been mentioning can be seen at the lower left. Schloß Lichtenberg im Odenwald - 1900 A la

The tour bus arrived at the hotel soon enough for me to get my suitcase to my room and then quickly walk across town, arriving at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery about 35 minutes before its 5 p.m. closing. That gave me little time to check out the shop, get oriented to the somewhat confusing layout of the building, and still view some paintings of interest to me. Below are some highlights from that short visit. Click on images to enlarge. Gallery The Departure of John and Sebastian Cabot from Bristol on Their First Voyage of Discovery, 1497 - by Ernest Board - 1906 I wrote about Board here , noting that this painting has interested my for a long time. It hangs in the entrance area of the museum and is covered by protective material that's reflective, preventing getting a decent photo of it. Seeing it in person was the main motivation for my visit. The Delhi Durbar of 1903, The Governor's Procession or The State Entry - by Roderick MacKenzie - 1907 Directly opposite

There is almost no Internet information regarding the skilled American portrait painter Raymond Perry Rodgers Neilson (1881-1964). The most detail I could find is here . It seems that Neilson was a 1905 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who resigned from the service in 1908 to study art. He returned to the navy as a Lieutenant (equivalent to army captain rank) when the United States entered the Great War and served as an aide to Vice Admiral William Sims who commanded U.S. naval operations in Europe (the latter point from this source ): clearly Neilson had connections. The second link also mentions that he was "Member American Artists Professional League. N.A.; Clubs: Salmagundi, Century. Home and Studio: 131 E. 66th St. New York City 21, New York." That address was not and is not in a shabby neighborhood. But then, he was married to the daughter of a Pittsburgh steel maker. The first link notes: "Neilson studied with William Merritt Chase and at the Art Students L

Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848-1936), Wikipedia entry here , specialized in mural painting. He was successful at that, winning a number of major commissions: the link has a list of many of these. Blashfield studied engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a while, then left to pursue art. An inheritance allowed him to go to Paris in 1869 where he studied under Léon Bonnat. He remained in France until 1881. Although his time in France coincided with the rise of French Impressionism, his style remained traditional, but not strictly Academic. This worked well for him as a muralist, because American government-funded murals in the decades around 1900 tended to have uplifting themes often manifested by symbolic characters. The examples of Blashfield's work shown below are mostly not murals because those could be huge, often integrated into a building's architecture, and hard to photograph. Instead, I feature easel paintings and drawings. I should add that some

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (1863-1935) was a Danish artist (Wikipedia entry here ) who painted a surprising number of similar scenes. Those scenes were interiors with similar windows and furnishings populated by a young woman. Superficially, this is similar to a number of the known works by the famed Dutch artist Johannes (Jan) Vermeer where there was a window towards the left side of the painting, one or a few human subjects (usually female), and varying room décor. Holsøe painted other subjects -- often different interiors -- but I thought it would be fun to present a set of his paintings that portray essentially the same sort of thing. Besides paned windows, some on French doors, nearly every painting contains a tall, narrow mirror. Titles are omitted in the Gallery below. Gallery The general setting without a young woman. Finally, Holsøe provides The Old Switcheroo -- the woman is outside.