Jack E Meier

Angel Ramiro Sanchez was born in 1974 in Maracaibo, Venezuela. At six, he was accepted with full scholarship into the Instituto the Niños Cantores del Zulia, a school for musically gifted children. At 14, he began five years of apprenticeship with the realist painter, Abdon J. Romero, an eminent specialist in murals for churches and public buildings. In 1993, a study grant from Gustavo Ocando Yamarte, founder of the Niños Cantores, enabled him to travel to Florence, Italy, where he studied at the renowned Accademia di Belle Arti, graduating with Magna Cum Laude in 1997. At the same time, he was enrolled at The Florence Academy of Art, founded by painter Daniel Graves, where he received a diploma in painting. Sanchez was appointed senior painting instructor at The Florence Academy of Art in 1997 and is currently director of the Advanced Painting Program. Ramiro paints only from life, searching for accuracy beyond physical appearance to reach the psychological state of his subject. He believes the painter must draw his information from "all five senses" to tell the complete human story. His works can be found in numerous private collections in Europe, The United States and South America. The public collections include The Fondazione Stelline, Milan, Italy. The Fremantle Foundation for Foreign Artists in Tuscany at Villa Peyron, Florence, Italy, and The Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. He shares his life and passion for art with his wife, artist Melissa Franklin-Sanchez.

Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.