Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was an American artist who worked and lived in France.

Cassatt came from a well-off family, and studied painting in Paris, against her father's will at first.

Women could not go to art school in those days, so she took private lessons.

She became part of the group of impressionist painters before long.

I personally love her etchings especially (top row), they have something of the Japanese print about them.

I don't really know if she chose her subject matter: women and children out of interest or if she was bound by her own womanhood.

The first drawing by Leonid Soyfertis that I found (on Pinterest) was the one with the children crossing the street. The caption was in cyrillic, as with most of the others I found.

I haven't in fact been able to find out very much about him, except he worked/works as an illustrator and cartoonist.

But what friendly drawings! He lovingly depicts daily life in Russia.

I would have liked to have shown all his work..

Some of us are hard at work in this heat...

If I had been a photographer, I would have liked to be able to make photographs like these.

These were made by André Kertész (1894-1985), who was born in Budapest and worked in Paris and New York.

I love the high viewpoint Kertész often uses, but I most of all love his use of shadows.

I like to 'ground' the figures in my drawings with a good shadow myself.

Before we forget what the world looks like when the sun doesn't shine:

this is the work of Jack Simcock (1929-2012)

Simcock lived and worked most of his life in Mow Cop, Staffordshire, in the industrialised Midlands.

Not the most picturesque environment, that much is clear.

In all these paintings nature consists of bare trees and dead grass, but nevertheless Mow Cop, with its dark buildings and wet gleaming streets proofs to be a beautiful subject.

I came across a print this week on the worldwide scrapbook that is Pinterest by the Australian born artist Martin Lewis (1881-1962).

The etching reminded me in technique and atmosphere of the beautiful picturebook 'The arrival' by Shaun Tan. 

Lewis moved to the United States in 1900 and worked predominantly in New York.

I have seen more rural landscapes by him, but he mostly did these cityscapes.

The human figures in his work occupy an environment that could maybe be a bit hostile, like in Tan's 'The arrival'.

You can't help wondering if Shaun Tan knew Lewis' work when he made the book..

There are more Swedisch painters than the wellknown Carl Larsson ofcourse.

There is this other Carl for instance, Carl Wilhelm Wilhelmson (1866-1926).

Wilhelmson painted beautiful landscapes, but I particularly love his paintings of people, like the bored adolescent girls in the paintings above (his daughters?) and the solemn farmers.

His work is less idyllic than Larssons, but I love it.

As a small tribute to the Dutch artist Armando, who died earlier this week, this print I made in 2008, after a fire distroyed the then Armando Museum in Amersfoort.

A little jalousie de métier is ofcourse not alien to me:

For instance, I can't draw bicycles and cars. The wheels won't be round, I forget essential parts and all in all they will look stiff.

Years ago I was asked to illustrate a small book about a girl and her new bike. In every drawing I hid that bicycle as much as I could behind trees, hedges and people.

So I always look with admiration at the cars, bikes and even agricultural machinary in the drawings of Dutch illustrator Philip Hopman (1961)

How does he get them to be so convincing, and also so cosy!!

(ps: I did draw a bus once accidently that I am proud of, in de liedjesalmanak, lente en zomer)

The first work I ever saw by the British painter Laura Knight (1877-1970) was the beautiful, cool portrait of Ethel Bartlett, top left.

So it was a surprise to see her other work. Beside these elaborate, 'decent' portraits, she made lovely landscapes and romantic portraits of gypsies, workers and circus performers. A broad spectrum!

The painting top middle is called Self portrait. I don't know how she did it, maybe after a photo?

But it is beautiful and I love it!