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Leroy Neiman was born June 8th, 1921 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. When he was a child his mother divorced his father, so Neiman was mostly raised by his father Charles. He spent his whole childhood growing up in the rural areas surrounding St. Paul. At the start of World War II Neiman enlisted in the army where he served as a cook. While serving as a cook his artistic talents earned him a position designing sets and costumes for the performances put on by the Red Cross for the troops. Returning home from the war in 1946, Neiman under the G.I bill, studied at the St. Paul School of Art and later the Art Institute of Chicago. Once graduating Neiman served on the faculty of the Art Institute of Chicago for ten years. 

While teaching at the Art Institute Neiman was also showing his work in competitions and exhibits earning him a lot of publicity. At this time in 1954 Neiman began his relationship with the Playboy Magazine. Neiman had met Hugh Hefner while working as a freelance artist doing illustrations for the Carson Pirie Scott department store. Hefner commissioned an illustration from Neiman for Playboy Magazine's fifth issue. The illustration was a success and Neiman built a working relationship with the magazine that would last 50 years. 

In the 1960s Neiman began to travel around the world and draw inspiration from activities of leisure, in particular sporting events. He would observe, boxing matches, golf tournaments, football games, even the Olympics. This new focus on sports made Neiman's work more accessible for the common man. As he built on this series of works he received more acclaim form the athletic and artistic community. He received five honorary doctorates and a life time achievement award from USC. Neiman also received induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and The Order of Lincoln Award.  

In 1998 he was commissioned to do a series of illustrations for a special issue of The Nation magazine. This launched Neiman even deeper into the eye of the common sports loving american. Neiman continued to work with this subject matter in varying medium ranging from oil, enamel, watercolor, charcoal, and serigraph until the end of his life on June 20th, 2012.

By Christian Franzen

Henry Mosler was born in Tropplowitz, Silesia (now Poland) on June 6, 1841. Henry's father Gustavus was a lithographer introducing Henry to art at an early age. Henry moved with his family to New York in 1849. They moved again in 1851 and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. In Ohio Mosler worked as an apprentice for a wood engraver. During his apprenticeship he also learned minor painting skills.

Self taught he became a draughtsman for a paper in Cincinnati named the Omnibus. In the late 1850s he studied with acclaimed painter James Henry Beard. Transitioning into the civil war Mosler got a job working as an art liaison for Harper's Weekly. Through this publication he put out many drawings and paintings voicing his strong Union support throughout the Civil War. He was also commissioned to do portraits of the Union Generals.

After the war in 1863, Mosler traveled to Dusseldor to study at the Royal Academy of Art. He studied there for three years followed by a short 8 month visit to Paris before returning home to the United States in 1866. Arriving home he became a sought after portrait artist by many wealthy individuals. 

He married his hometown sweetheart Sarah Cahn from Cincinnati in 1869. Not long after Mosler returned to Europe to study in Munich and then moved back to Paris in 1877. During these years living in France he painted most of his famous works, above all Le Retour; which he completed in 1879 while living in Brittany. This became the first ever American Painting bought by the Luxembourg Palace and he received a silver medal from the Salon in Paris. Only to later replace the silver with gold medals from both the Salon in Paris and Vienna in 1889.

Mosler moved back state side in 1894 in New York once more. He had a studio space in Carnegie Hall and served as a leading member of the National Academy of Design. He continued painting until his death on April 21, 1920. 

By Christian Franzen

Amy Sillman was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1955. From an early age Sillman liked to stay busy being always up to try something new. For a period of time she worked in an Alaskan cannery, trained at NYU as a Japanese interpreter, and pursued her artistic interest working as an assistant in a feminist silkscreen operation in Chicago. After pursuing so many different interests Sillman finally settled down and attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, New York. While at school, Sillman worked with a group of fellow students to create a feminist publication on art and politics they named Heresies. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 1979.

Sillman was influenced greatly by the New York School painters that came before her. Despite her inspirations of the abstract expressionist masters of the 40's and 50's, Sillman's work mixes abstraction with figurative representation. Sillman has also expanded herself beyond paint incorporating collage and video in her work. Many of her works are heavily layered and house a humor, psycho sexual elements, and feminist critique. 

In the early 1990's Sillman went back so school and received her MFA from Bard College in New York in 1995. She signed with Sikkema Jenkins & Co and began showing her work in the Brent Sikkema Gallery in New York in 2000. Now her work is show through her dealers gallery locations all over the world. She held a year long solo show "Third Person Singular" that exhibited a year long portraiture and abstraction project from 2008-2009. "Third Person Singular" granted Sillman a great deal of exposure and received applauding reviews. The first large show housing a full survey of Sillman's work was in October of 2013. It was premiered at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and traveled across the United States. Today Sillman is still living in New York and very active practicing artist.

By Christian Franzen