The Lives Of The Artists

Ep #10. Michael Shane Neal ~ America’s Leading Portrait Painter

Michael Shane Neal (born November 23, 1968) is an American portrait artist who currently serves as the chairman of the Portrait Society of America. Since beginning a full time career as an artist at the age of 21, Neal has completed more than 600 private and public commissioned portraits on display around the world. His work includes seven U.S presidential cabinet members, four former U.S. Ambassadors, seven U.S. senators, over a dozen Federal Judges, four U.S. governors, actors, and heads of universities. He has painted notable figures such as President George H.W. Bush, actor Morgan Freeman, jazz great Ron Carter, comedian Jimmy Fallon, journalist Carl Bernstein, authors Jon Meacham, Margaret Atwood, Colm Toibin and Doris Kearns Goodwin, fashion designers Anna Sui, Naeem Kahn, Valerie Steele, as well as Henry Lewis Gates Jr., former United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Sir Malcolm Colquhoun, Chief of Clan Colquhoun, 9th Baronet, 31st of Colquhoun and 33rd of Luss, and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Ep #9. Toto Bergamo Rossi ~ Director Of Venetian Heritage

Toto Bergamo Rossi is a restorer specializing in the conservation of stone, has restored important monuments in Italy and abroad. Since 2010 he has been the director of Venetian Heritage, an international nonprofit organization with offices in New York and Venice, which supports cultural initiatives through restorations, exhibitions, publications, conferences, studies, and research, with the goal of making the world more aware of the immense legacy of the art of Venice. He has led numerous restoration projects, exhibitions, and publications.

Ep #.8 Urban Larsson ~ Portrait Painter To The Swedish & Dutch Royal Families

Urban Larsson is an oil painter in the figurative tradition. Striving for beauty and universal human values, he paints only from life. He was born in 1966 in Stockholm and has lived and worked in Amsterdam for nearly three decades. Urban’s prestigious and numerous portrait commissions are international. He has for example painted the official portrait of HM Queen Silvia of Sweden and King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. What sets Larsson apart from most other painters is that he also masters other genres, such as still-lifes, landscapes and figures. He has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and USA. In 2017 he had two retrospective exhibitions in prominent museums in Sweden and the Netherlands. That same year a two part documentary on his work was broadcast on Dutch national television AVRO.

Ep #7. Thelonious Stokes ~ African American Artist Collected By Madonna

Thelonious Stokes is an academically trained oil painter, filmmaker, performance artist and designer based in Florence, Italy. He’s the first African American to graduate from the prestigious Florence Academy of Art and founder of The Black Academy of Art in Italy. Shaped by his Baptist culture and upbringing around jazz music on the Southside of Chicago, Stokes gravitated towards art at an early age as a means to express himself. Stokes’s work interrogates Western art history and Judeo-Christian themes – challenging and recontextualizing the canon to include themes and depictions of Black figuration that have been historically omitted. In this creative and illuminating conversation we discuss his upbringing, training, practice, being collected by Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, his friendship with Chance the Rapper & Vic Mensa, adventures in Africa and much, much more!

Ep #6. Tania Rivilis ~ Winner Of The William Locke Portrait Prize

Tania Rivilis began painting at the age of 27, after moving to Germany in 2012. Since 2015, she began taking part in art shows and exhibitions around the world. Tania’s paintings are now part of museum, gallery, and private collections all over the world, such as Jonathan and Stuart Hyman collection, State Museums of St. Petersburg (Saint Petersburg Museum, Vladimirskiy Palace and Marble Palace), and Astoria Hotel (Rocco Forte Hotels). Since 2019 Tania is a permanent exhibitor at Bonnard Galerie, Netherlands, and Arcadia Contemporary, New York, as well as displaying work at LA Art Fair (presented by Arcadia Gallery), and Amsterdam First Art Fair (Bonnard Gallery). In 2022 Tania received the prestigious William Lock Prize for the most timeless portrait, with real feeling for paint and aesthetic potential.

Ep #5. Dr Stephen A. Murphy ~ Worlds Leading Expert On Buddhist & Hindu Art

Dr Stephen A. Murphy specializes in the art and archaeology of Buddhism and Hinduism in first millennium CE Southeast Asia with a focus on Thailand and Laos. He has a particular interest in the 7th to 9th centuries CE as well as maritime connectivity between Southeast Asian cultures, Tang China, and the Indian Ocean world in general. His museological focus engages with issues of restitution and curation of Asian art. Stephen joined the SOAS University in November 2020. Prior to this he was Senior Curator for Southeast Asia and curator-in-charge of the Tang Shipwreck Gallery at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore (2013-2020). From 2011-2013 he was a research associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York for the Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia exhibition, 2014.

Ep #4. Tom Richards ~ Director Of The Florence Academy Of Art, Artist & Art Historian

Tom Richards is Director of the Florence Academy of Art, an Artist and Art Historian. In this insightful conversation we discuss his studio practice, his influences, commissions, inspirations, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Van Dyck, Titian, the influence that Rubens had over European art and much more!

Ep #3. Andy Woll ~ L.A Based Artist Represented By Night Gallery

Andy Woll is an expressive painter whose work oscillates between abstraction and representation. The subject of many of his paintings over the past decade has been Mount Wilson in Los Angeles, horses in full profile, and Diego Velázquez’s paintings of Infanta Margaret Theresa from the 17th century. He has compulsively painted these subjects taking inspiration from artists who returned to similar subject matter throughout their careers such as Paul Cézanne with Mont Sainte-Victoire and 18th century painter George Stubbs famed for his horse portraiture. By fixing the subject matter Woll experiences the freedom to explore other aspects of painting including color, mark-making, and differing levels of abstraction. In this fascinating discussion we talk about his early inspirations, education, his artistic influences and ideas on creating art.

Ep #2. Sue Tilley ~ Lucian Freud's Iconic Model & Muse

Sue Tilley modelled for Lucian Freud from 1993-96. He painted several large nude portraits of Tilley, 'Evening in the Studio', 1993, 'Benefits Supervisor Resting', 1994, 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping', 1995 and a fourth painting 'Sleeping by the Lion Carpet' was painted in 1996. Freud also produced a number of etchings featuring Tilley, including Woman with an Arm Tattoo which Tilley sold in 2005. In 1997, she published Leigh Bowery: The life and times of an Icon, a biography. This has been republished to coordinate with the Leigh Bowery retrospective exhibition at the Tate Modern on now. In this episode we discuss the inner working life of Lucian Freud's studio and her friendship with Leigh Bowery.

Ep #1. Jan Six ~ Worlds Leading Rembrandt Expert

Jan Six is a Dutch art dealer, art historian and world’s leading Rembrandt expert. In 2018, he identified ‘Portrait of a Young Gentleman’, this was the first new Rembrandt identified in 44 years. The experience was filmed for an award winning documentary called ‘My Rembrandt’. In this episode we discuss the life, work and legacy of one of the greatest artists to have ever lived, Rembrandt van Rijn.