Today is the birthday of Giorgio de Chirico who was born in Volos, Greece.  He painted beautiful incredibly strange and slightly scary paintings and was the greatest influence on the Surrealist movement of art.  In Paris he attended important and intellectual salons, what people did before they watched oodles of television, when they actually talked to each other.  I think some people still do this sometimes.

I preferr him to Salvador Dali, but maybe I have been over exposed because ever college student I knew had at least 2 posters of Dali's hanging on their wall or at least a calendar and I just got sick of him.

His most famous paintings were created from 1909-1920 and can bee seen at [ref.2].   He started a magazine with a fellow painter, Pittura Metafisica.  The Guggenheim has 2 of his works which can be seen online at ref. 4. 

Ref. 3 & 5 has great essays and references about him and his work.

ref. 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Chirico

ref. 2 http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Chirico.html

ref. 3 http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/de_chiricobio.html

ref. 4 http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_works_35_0.html

ref. 5 http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=8A01F23B-BBCF-11D4-A93500D0B7069B40