Hilma af Klint was born in 1862, in Solna, Sweden, as the fourth of five children of a Protestant couple, Mathilda af Klint and Victor af Klint who was an admiral and a mathematician. Most of her childhood was spent in Karlberg castle, the naval academy where her father was based. During the summer, the family would move to Hanmora, in Adelso, an island in Lake Malaren, where Hilma's fascination with nature and organic life began.

QUOTE BY RUSS MILLS: “My work dwells in a netherworld between urban fine art and contemporary graphics, a collision of real and digital media it is primarily illustration based with a firm foundation in drawing, I focus mainly on the human form particularly the face, interweaving elements from the animal kingdom often reflecting the absurdity of human nature”

James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son, explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western society, most notably in regard to the mid-twentieth-century United States.

Sonia Gechtoff began her career immersed in the heady culture of the San Francisco Bay Area Beat Generation, producing abstract paintings and drawings with tantalizing hints of figuration. Inspired by poetry, Gechtoff approaches her work with a belief in the expressive power of color, individual brushstrokes, and thickly applied oil paint. Many of her works, like The Angel (1953-55), are abstracted self-portraits—through vibrant colors and thick, energetic brushstrokes, Gechtoff creates the suggestion of a central figure, whose abundant arms-cum-wings stretch across the picture plane. Later in her career, after moving to New York, Gechtoff began drawing inspiration from the Brooklyn Bridge, classical architecture, and the sea, whose forms are recognizable in her later series of flat, understated, collage-like paintings.

MARY ABBOTT: Born: July 27, 1921 (age 99 years), New York, NY;

Died: August 23, 2019 (aged 98); Westhampton Beach, New York, U.S

Abbott painted bold, colorful works, often inspired by nature or music, and traveled in the same circles as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and other artists who were redefining painting in the years after World War II. De Kooning in particular, 17 years her senior, became a friend, lover and protector, including from some of the other male artists.

Anne Estelle Rice (1877–1959) was born in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, and studied art at the School of Industrial Art of the Pennsylvania Museum as well as the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She was an illustrator for the most popular magazines of the day, including Collier’s, Harper’s, and The Saturday Evening Post.

Sir Donald McCullin CBE is a British photojournalist, particularly recognised for his war photography and images of urban strife. His career, which began in 1959, has specialised in examining the underside of society, and his photographs have depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and the impoverished.

Considered one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, Romare Bearden’s artwork depicted the African American culture and experience in creative and thought provoking ways. Born in North Carolina in 1911, Bearden spent much of his career in New York City. Virtually self-taught, his early works were realistic images, often with religious themes. He later transitioned to abstract and Cubist style paintings in oil and watercolor. He is best known for his photomontage compositions made from torn images of popular magazines and assembled into visually powerful statements on African American life.