Oscar Edmund Berninghaus
American (1874-1952)

St. Louis native, Oscar E. Berninghaus was best known for his paintings of horses and Native Americans.  After receiving formal training at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad gave Berninghaus a commission in 1899 to paint the mountain scenery, mining camps, people, and villages of Colorado and New Mexico.  This opportunity introduced him to the small town of Taos where he met fellow artists Bert Phillips, Ernest Blumenschein. Joseph Sharp, Eanger Irving Couse, and W. Herbert Dunton.  This group of six later created the Taos Society of Artists.

Berninghaus painted the people of Taos in natural settings revealing an understanding of their life
in a new age.

Robert Vickrey
American (b. 1926)

A painter of modernist portraits, Robert Vickrey has created many paintings that appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine and has written extensively on his methods of using tempera. He has frequently been called an American Surrealist or Magic Realist and uses symbolism extensively. Sometimes over their hearts, his portrait figures have targets, symbolizing the horrors and violence of war. He was born in New York City, attended Wesleyan University and, in the 1940s, the Yale School of Fine Arts where he received his B.A. in 1947 and later a B.F.A. He also studied at the Art Students League of New York with Victoria Huntley, Reginald Marsh and Kenneth Hayes Miller. He learned the technique of tempera painting from Lewis York, a protege of Daniel Thompson, Jr. who wrote the textbook for the tempera class at the Yale School of Fine Art. In 1950, Vickrey worked with Josef Albers at Yale. His work is in numerous museums including the National Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian, the National Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Chrysler Museum, and the Corcoran Collection.

Edouard Cortes
French (1882-1969)

At the age of seventeen Édouard Cortes began his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and in 1901, held his first exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Français. Considered to be one of the great masters of French Post-Impressionism, Cortes achieved success and recognition during his lifetime for his interpretations of the busy streets of Paris. In his Paris scenes, Cortes sought to capture the charm of the city during the transition from the Belle Époque into a modern twentieth-century capital. Through bold brush strokes and captivating composition his work conveys the vitality of Paris and it’s inhabitants. The eye of the viewer is most often caught by the intriguing details throughout his work. The reflection of light on wet pavement, shadows on streets and the glow of windows and street lamps lend an air of mystery and romance to Cortes’ paintings.

Paul Cornoyer
American (1864-1923)

Paul Cornoyer was born in 1864 in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied there at the School of Fine Arts in 1881. His first works were in a Barbizon mode, and his first exhibit was in 1887. In 1889, he went to Paris for further training, studying at the Academie Julien, and returned to St. Louis in 1894. By the early 1890s, his work was more lyrical and Tonal, and he applied this style to subjects such as cityscapes and landscapes. In 1894, he painted a mural depicting the birth of St. Louis for the Planters Hotel in that city. In 1899, Cornoyer traveled to New York City, upon the encouragement of William Merritt Chase, who had acquired some of his work (probably the Parisian scene shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts annual in 1896-97). In New York, he became a specialist in Tonal urban scenes, especially after rain with its blurred effects, his masterwork being "The Plaza after Rain", purchased in 1910 by the new art museum of St. Louis. He was able to capture the wet, mirrored pavements with precision, streets with horse drawn carriages, trees, aligned buildings and streets.

Robert E. Tindall
American (1913-1983)

Independence, Missouri native, Robert Elton Tindall studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute.  In 1940 Benton organized an exhibit of his best student’s work in New York City, choosing Tindall as one of only two participants.  He incorporated a wide variety of media including egg tempera, which resulted in beautiful and delicate paintings.  A lover of flowers and plant life, he painted flora with emotion and spirituality.  Tindall’s paintings have been shown at the City Art Museum of Saint Louis, the Denver Art Museum, and the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.

Gustav Wolff
American (1863-1935)

Painter and sculptor Gustav Wolff was born in Germany on March 28,1863. He came to America in 1866. His family settled in Saint Louis, Missouri, where he received his first formal training. By the later 1880s a landscape school was beginning to form in Saint Louis that would become the city's most distinctive artistic feature. It's members stressed poetic mood over topographical naturalism. Among them was Sylvester Annan, a Paris trained painter of tonal landscapes, and, more important, Paul Cornoyer. Born in Saint Louis, Cornoyer studied at the School of Fine Arts in 1881, and later was recognized as the leader of the movement. Gustav Wolff, a student of the School of Fine Arts, and especially of Cornoyer, followed his teacher as a specialist in tonal landscapes. And Wolff, who remained a major landscapist in Saint Louis, was the teacher of Arthur Mitchell, also a delineator of poetic landscapes in the early twentieth century and long time resident of that city.