Matt Collins is an American, originally from Chicago, who was my teacher when I studied portrait painting in Florence. Aside from the daily critiques of my work, he was always very happy to answer questions about the baroque style and direct me to further reading. He has been therefore, very influential in giving me what understanding that I have of this great Christian tradition. I had lost contact with him after I left Florence, until I was asked to be on the advisory board of the Foundation for Sacred Arts. When I looked at the works the Foundation had presented at a recently staged exhibition, there was one submission that caught my eye as being consistent with the baroque tradition. It was painted by Matt and it is the one shown here.

He no longer lives in Florence, still lives and works in Italy. He paints, sculpts and does traditional etching with great skill. In addition to this I do not know anyone who knows more about the teaching methods and techniques of the High Renaissance and baroque periods than Matt, so I would enthusiastic direct all readers to it his recently created blog, here.

Some regular visitors to my blog may recognize his name. He has contributed detailed comments about technique and teaching methods to several of my articles, all of which add greatly to what I have written. His first blog posting is particularly interesting. It is about printmaking and he includes several examples he has produced himself which I have reproduced here.