William M. Reusswig Paintings

In this atmospheric landscape at sunset, Fredrik Lagerström captures a fleeting twilight moment with vivid intensity. The sky is aglow with brilliant gold and amber hues, which are m...

Title: Untitled II Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 19.5 x 16 inches Frame: Framing options available! Condition: The painting appears to be in excellent condition. Note: This painting is...

"Gathering the Mares," by Lani Vlaanderen, is a secondary market oil painting on canvas with one previous owner. This work is unframed and will require a frame. We can frame it for y...

Pocket Persimmon Fruit by Dani Humberstone [2022] original and hand signed by artist Oil paint on canvas Image size: H:5 cm x W:5 cm Complete Size of Unframed Work: H:5 cm x W:5 cm x D:3cm Frame Size: H:16 cm x W:16 cm x D:3.5cm Sold Framed Please note that insitu images are purely an indication of how a piece may look Please note that insitu images are purely an indication of how a piece may look. Pocket Persimmon Fruit is an original oil painting by Dani Humberstone as part of her pocket fruit series.

This painting is Bruno Surdo’s contemporary reimagining of Saint Sebastian, one of the most enduring subjects in Western art. From Mantegna and Botticelli to Guido Reni and Caravaggio, Sebastian has long been depicted as the bound, arrow-pierced martyr whose physical suffering becomes an image of spiritual transcendence. Surdo clearly situates himself within this lineage: the contrapposto pose, uplifted gaze, and carefully modeled anatomy reflect his atelier training and deep engagement with Renaissance ideals of the heroic nude. The flesh is luminous and sculptural, recalling Michelangelo’s influence on the canon of the male body as both aesthetic and symbolic form. Yet Surdo decisively destabilizes the tradition. The arrows piercing the body are not lethal shafts but rubber suction-cup darts—objects associated with toys and staged play. This substitution transforms martyrdom into performance. The gravity of sacred suffering is undercut by irony, even absurdity. The saint is no longer impaled by instruments of death but by harmless projectiles, suggesting that contemporary suffering may be theatricalized, trivialized, or culturally mediated. At the same time, the figure’s expression remains sincere and emotionally vulnerable; the psychological intensity is real, even if the wounds are not. This tension between authentic emotion and artificial harm introduces a modern critique of spectacle—how pain can be aestheticized, simulated, or consumed. The graffiti-covered urban wall further collapses sacred history into contemporary space. Instead of a devotional landscape or heavenly backdrop, Surdo situates his Sebastian against a chaotic, tagged surface, merging classical beauty with raw urban immediacy. Saint Sebastian has long functioned not only as a symbol of faith but also as an emblem of sensualized male beauty and coded identity in art history. Surdo acknowledges that layered tradition while reframing it through irony and cultural commentary. By replacing deadly arrows with toy darts, he transforms martyrdom into a meditation on vulnerability in an age where suffering may be symbolic rather than fatal—performed, projected, or socially inflicted rather than divinely ordained. As in much of his work, Surdo grounds contemporary psychological tension in the authority of Renaissance form, using the language of history painting to question what sanctity, sacrifice, and spectacle mean today. Bruno Surdo Paradox of St. Sebastian oil on canvas 60h x 36w in 152.40h x 91.44w cm Bruno A. Surdo b. Chicago, 1963 EXHIBITIONS 2018 Liberation, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Blood Sport, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Art on Paper 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Pier 36, New York, NY SOFA Chicago 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL 2017 POP!ARAZZI, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Coming Attractions, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2015 SOFA Chicago 2015, Ann Nathan Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Allegories, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2014 Bruno Surdo: Respond, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Modern Metaphors, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL 2013 Bruno Surdo: Revelations, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Vice + Virtue, Northern Illinois University Museum of Art 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN 2011 Bruno Surdo, University of St. Francis School of Creative Arts, Fort Wayne, IN Uncensored, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2010 Art Chicago 2010, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2009 Art Chicago 2009, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2007 Bruno Surdo, Art Institute of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 2006 Context/Content: Making Meaning with the Figure, University of Arkansas, Conway, AR Creative Imaginings, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL Bruno Surdo: Cycles, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2005 Art Chicago 2005, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2004 Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2004, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Group Show, Arcadia Gallery, New York, NY Drawings VII, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, West Hollywood, CA Armory Show, New York Armory, New York, NY 2003 Paintings & Drawings, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL The Art Show, New York, NY Bruno Surdo: New Work, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2003, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2003-10 International Show of Contemporary Artists, Chicago Art Open, Chicago, IL 2002 Bruno Surdo: Perception of Appearance, Frye Museum, Seattle, WA Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Transcendence, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2002, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR 1998 Evanston and Vicinity Artists, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL 1996 Bruno Surdo: A Personal View, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha, WI 1995 Bruno Surdo: Recent Works, College of Lake County, IL AIDS in Our Society, Loyola University, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Life, Struggle, and Hope, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Bruno Surdo: Dualities of Life, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1999 Group Show, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1998 Group Exhibition, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, IL 1995 Spiritual Inquiries, Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL 1994 Recent Works, The 14th Annual Juried Exhibition for Lake County Artists, Grayslake, IL Go Figure, Figurative Works on Paper, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, IL SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Re-Birth of Venus, Temporary Loan, Fort Wayne Museum of Art Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR College of Lake County, Greyslake, IL Flashpoint Academy, Chicago IL John Robert Wiltgen Design Shoemaker Ruud Collection Julie & Thomas Danilek Michael Vozzella and Mike Silver Benjamin Fernandez Tom Braake Betsy Colburn Michael Diemand & Lor LaRose Michael Staab & Kathy Brock Bruce Leep Frank Tzurect Mary Foley Rosalyn Carlson Mimmy Turney Janet Long Halstead Billy Hunt Carol Galli Myles Kerrigan Honorable & Mrs. Edwin Berman Theodore Gage Northrop Art Museum Past Present & Future Company Dr. James & Peggy Kemmler Salvatore Monastero Nix & Virginia Lauridsen Joel Miller David & Marlene Zerkel Ann & Andy Abel Claudia Rush Marc Miller Leonard Goldberg Lawrence Pucci Howard Tullman Collection Susan & Manny Kramer James Rinnert Richar Interiors Michael & Nancy Colt Khalid Altijir Dr. Joe Grodman Beryl & Jack Gore Larry Wolf & Eric Naegle Chuck Wolandi Jack Schwab & David Sandelin Thomas Kaczmarek Marti Dinerstein Craig & Michael Golden...

This painting reflects Bruno Surdo’s continued engagement with classical realism as a vehicle for contemporary allegory. A young girl, centered and frontal, sits in an inflatable ring surrounded by floating plastic waste—bottles, containers, straws—both above and beneath the water’s surface. The composition is calm, almost symmetrical, yet emotionally unsettling. Surdo’s atelier-based training is evident in the careful modeling of the child’s anatomy, the naturalistic rendering of skin tones, and the controlled atmospheric perspective. The figure is painted with the same dignity and structural clarity found in Renaissance portraiture, elevating what could be a simple environmental image into a modern history painting. Art historically, the work draws from the tradition of allegorical portraiture, where innocence is personified to communicate moral themes. The child recalls Renaissance depictions of putti or symbolic youth figures, yet here innocence is placed in peril. The floating debris creates a contemporary vanitas motif: instead of skulls and extinguished candles, the symbols of decay are plastic and petroleum byproducts—markers of environmental neglect. The waterline dividing the composition subtly recalls the layered moral narratives of Baroque painting, where surface beauty often concealed deeper truths. The title, Contaminating the Innocent, underscores this allegorical intent, transforming the image into a meditation on generational responsibility. Within Surdo’s broader oeuvre—often concerned with spectacle, identity, and human consequence—this painting shifts toward ecological consciousness. Yet it remains consistent with his practice of grounding urgent modern themes in the visual authority of classical technique. By presenting environmental degradation through the lens of Renaissance-informed realism, Surdo avoids didactic illustration and instead creates a quiet, haunting indictment. The stillness of the child’s gaze contrasts with the chaos of the polluted water, reinforcing the central tension: the vulnerability of innocence in a world shaped by adult action. Bruno Surdo Contaminating the Innocent oil on canvas 48h x 48w in 121.92h x 121.92w cm BRS072 Bruno A. Surdo b. Chicago, 1963 EXHIBITIONS 2020 Realities, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2018 Liberation, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Blood Sport, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Art on Paper 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Pier 36, New York, NY SOFA Chicago 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL 2017 POP!ARAZZI, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Coming Attractions, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2015 SOFA Chicago 2015, Ann Nathan Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Allegories, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2014 Bruno Surdo: Respond, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Modern Metaphors, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL 2013 Bruno Surdo: Revelations, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Vice + Virtue, Northern Illinois University Museum of Art 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN 2011 Bruno Surdo, University of St. Francis School of Creative Arts, Fort Wayne, IN Uncensored, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2010 Art Chicago 2010, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2009 Art Chicago 2009, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2007 Bruno Surdo, Art Institute of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 2006 Context/Content: Making Meaning with the Figure, University of Arkansas, Conway, AR Creative Imaginings, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL Bruno Surdo: Cycles, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2005 Art Chicago 2005, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2004 Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2004, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Group Show, Arcadia Gallery, New York, NY Drawings VII, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, West Hollywood, CA Armory Show, New York Armory, New York, NY 2003 Paintings & Drawings, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL The Art Show, New York, NY Bruno Surdo: New Work, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2003, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2003-10 International Show of Contemporary Artists, Chicago Art Open, Chicago, IL 2002 Bruno Surdo: Perception of Appearance, Frye Museum, Seattle, WA Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Transcendence, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2002, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR 1998 Evanston and Vicinity Artists, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL 1996 Bruno Surdo: A Personal View, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha, WI 1995 Bruno Surdo: Recent Works, College of Lake County, IL AIDS in Our Society, Loyola University, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Life, Struggle, and Hope, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Bruno Surdo: Dualities of Life, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1999 Group Show, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1998 Group Exhibition, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, IL 1995 Spiritual Inquiries, Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL 1994 Recent Works, The 14th Annual Juried Exhibition for Lake County Artists, Grayslake, IL Go Figure, Figurative Works on Paper, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, IL SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Re-Birth of Venus, Temporary Loan, Fort Wayne Museum of Art Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR College of Lake County, Greyslake, IL Flashpoint Academy, Chicago IL John Robert Wiltgen Design Shoemaker Ruud Collection Julie & Thomas Danilek Michael Vozzella and Mike Silver Benjamin Fernandez Tom Braake Betsy Colburn Michael Diemand & Lor LaRose Michael Staab & Kathy Brock Bruce Leep Frank Tzurect Mary Foley Rosalyn Carlson Mimmy Turney Janet Long Halstead Billy Hunt Carol Galli Myles Kerrigan Honorable & Mrs. Edwin Berman Theodore Gage Northrop Art Museum Past Present & Future Company Dr. James & Peggy Kemmler Salvatore Monastero Nix & Virginia Lauridsen Joel Miller David & Marlene Zerkel Ann & Andy Abel Claudia Rush Marc Miller Leonard Goldberg Lawrence Pucci Howard Tullman Collection Susan & Manny Kramer James Rinnert Richar Interiors Michael & Nancy Colt Khalid Altijir Dr. Joe Grodman Beryl & Jack Gore Larry Wolf & Eric Naegle Chuck Wolandi Jack Schwab & David Sandelin Thomas Kaczmarek Marti Dinerstein Craig & Michael Golden...

This painting depicts an impressionistic cafe scene of a woman in a Dior dress immersed in the Parisian cityscape while sitting at an outdoor café table. She is dressed in a black ou...

This crowded theater scene shifts focus from performance to spectatorship, drawing inspiration from the cult spectacle of The Rocky Horror Picture Sho...

"Abduction of the Emperor" by Stanley Bate is an abstract oil painting made in 1971. This piece is primarily a textured sandy gold color with geometric shapes that add pops of light ...

The artist painted this sketch from life in Kolomenskoye Park in the Alla Prima style in 2011. This artwork is a vibrant, impressionistic portrayal of a flourishing tree in springtim...

Title: Next To Water And Mountain Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 15.5 x 19 inches Frame: Framing options available! Condition: The painting appears to be in excellent condition. Note: T...

This painting exemplifies Bruno Surdo’s synthesis of Renaissance figuration, Northern allegory, and psychological symbolism. Female figures twist and overlap beneath a lattice of tree branches, while animals—a lamb, fox, squirrel, hummingbird—inhabit the same compressed pictorial space. The interlocking limbs and diagonals recall High Renaissance and Mannerist strategies of sculptural composition, and Surdo’s atelier training is evident in the anatomical precision and volumetric modeling of flesh. Yet the scene feels intentionally dense and claustrophobic. Rather than a pastoral idyll, the forest becomes charged—alive with tension, concealment, and layered meaning. The symbolic animals situate the work within a long art historical lineage. The lamb evokes innocence or sacrifice; the fox suggests cunning and instinct; birds often signify fragility or spirit; the spider embedded in the branches recalls vanitas traditions of the Dutch Golden Age, where small creatures signal mortality and hidden threat. However, the background introduces an additional, more psychological register: the partially obscured eye and the numbers 3, 5, and 7. These are not naturalistic elements; they intrude like fragments from another realm. Their presence subtly aligns with Jungian thought—an area of interest for Surdo—where numbers function as archetypal structures of order within the psyche. In Jungian symbolism, such numbers carry qualitative meaning rather than mere quantity, suggesting stages, wholeness, embodiment, or cycles of psychic development. Their appearance within the forest—traditionally a metaphor for the unconscious—suggests the mind’s attempt to map or structure instinctual terrain. The eye, half-hidden behind branches, intensifies this reading. It can be understood as a symbol of awareness or consciousness emerging from within the thicket of instinct. Rather than divine omniscience, it feels psychological—an archetypal “watcher” embedded in the natural world. The forest thus becomes more than environment; it reads as psychic landscape. Surdo collapses civilization and instinct, rational structure and animal impulse, into a single visual field. Within his broader oeuvre—often concerned with the tension between performance and authenticity, order and chaos—this work becomes a contemporary myth of the psyche. Renaissance form provides authority and structure, while allegorical animals and Jungian symbols suggest the layered architecture of the unconscious. The result is a painting that feels timeless yet inwardly modern: a meditation on innocence, predation, awareness, and the hidden numerical and symbolic frameworks through which the human mind seeks to understand its own wilderness. Bruno Surdo Nature's Web of Dependency oil on canvas 64h x 66.50w in 162.56h x 168.91w cm BRS082 Bruno A. Surdo b. Chicago, 1963 EXHIBITIONS 2021 Ethos + Truth, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2020 Realities, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2018 Liberation, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Blood Sport, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Art on Paper 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Pier 36, New York, NY SOFA Chicago 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL 2017 POP!ARAZZI, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Coming Attractions, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2015 SOFA Chicago 2015, Ann Nathan Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Allegories, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2014 Bruno Surdo: Respond, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Modern Metaphors, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL 2013 Bruno Surdo: Revelations, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Vice + Virtue, Northern Illinois University Museum of Art 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN 2011 Bruno Surdo, University of St. Francis School of Creative Arts, Fort Wayne, IN Uncensored, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2010 Art Chicago 2010, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2009 Art Chicago 2009, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2007 Bruno Surdo, Art Institute of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 2006 Context/Content: Making Meaning with the Figure, University of Arkansas, Conway, AR Creative Imaginings, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL Bruno Surdo: Cycles, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2005 Art Chicago 2005, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2004 Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2004, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Group Show, Arcadia Gallery, New York, NY Drawings VII, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, West Hollywood, CA Armory Show, New York Armory, New York, NY 2003 Paintings & Drawings, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL The Art Show, New York, NY Bruno Surdo: New Work, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2003, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2003-10 International Show of Contemporary Artists, Chicago Art Open, Chicago, IL 2002 Bruno Surdo: Perception of Appearance, Frye Museum, Seattle, WA Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Transcendence, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2002, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR 1998 Evanston and Vicinity Artists, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL 1996 Bruno Surdo: A Personal View, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha, WI 1995 Bruno Surdo: Recent Works, College of Lake County, IL AIDS in Our Society, Loyola University, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Life, Struggle, and Hope, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Bruno Surdo: Dualities of Life, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1999 Group Show, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1998 Group Exhibition, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, IL 1995 Spiritual Inquiries, Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL 1994 Recent Works, The 14th Annual Juried Exhibition for Lake County Artists, Grayslake, IL Go Figure, Figurative Works on Paper, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, IL SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Re-Birth of Venus, Temporary Loan, Fort Wayne Museum of Art Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR College of Lake County, Greyslake, IL Flashpoint Academy, Chicago IL John Robert Wiltgen Design Shoemaker Ruud Collection Julie & Thomas Danilek Michael Vozzella and Mike Silver Benjamin Fernandez Tom Braake Betsy Colburn Michael Diemand & Lor LaRose Michael Staab & Kathy Brock Bruce Leep Frank Tzurect Mary Foley Rosalyn Carlson Mimmy Turney Janet Long Halstead Billy Hunt Carol Galli Myles Kerrigan Honorable & Mrs. Edwin Berman Theodore Gage Northrop Art Museum Past Present & Future Company Dr. James & Peggy Kemmler Salvatore Monastero Nix & Virginia Lauridsen Joel Miller David & Marlene Zerkel Ann & Andy Abel Claudia Rush Marc Miller Leonard Goldberg Lawrence Pucci Howard Tullman Collection Susan & Manny Kramer James Rinnert Richar Interiors Michael & Nancy Colt Khalid Altijir Dr. Joe Grodman Beryl & Jack Gore Larry Wolf & Eric Naegle Chuck Wolandi Jack Schwab & David Sandelin Thomas Kaczmarek Marti Dinerstein Craig & Michael Golden...