While most people visit museums and just enjoy the art, Karin Jurick is studying the whole scene. She takes out her camera and captures pictures of museum patrons engrossed in art and then goes back to her studio to paint both the art and the visitor, or as she describes it, “moments in time, people just doing their thing.”

She calls this whole series Museum Patrons. Recently, she narrowed down the work calling it ArtistZ. Jurick made a list of her favorite painters from A to Z. “When I had several for a letter, I dove into learning more about each artist and finding ‘the one’ image that I loved most,” she states. “With a few letters, I had no idea who to choose, like Q or X, so I spent a good amount of time researching artists I’d never heard of.”

One of my all-time favorite paintings is Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. In Jurick’s version, a couple huddles closely together while enjoying the piece. The artist cleverly named her version Double Date.

If you enjoy Jurick’s work, you can buy her book, here. Called ArtistZ it’s a series of paintings which feature select works of art from her favorite and most-inspiring artists. What a great way to learn about art and appreciate all the classic artists.

What’s most impressive about this body of work is that Jurick has to closely replicate work from the all-time greatest masters. Monets, Picassos, Klimts, nothing seems too intimidating for the artist.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by George Seurat

Irises by Claude Monet

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

America Windows by Marc Chagall

Summer by Frank Benson

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

The Problem We All Live With by Norman Rockwell

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

American Gothic by Grant Wood

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso

Dance by Henri Matisse

“Close Encounter”, Chuck Close

The Red Armchair, Portrait of Sylvette David and Femme Assise by Pablo Picasso

As an homage to one of her all-time favorite movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Jurick painted the scene where the three friends stopped for a moment to take in some iconic art. “There’s a scene in the movie when Ferris, his girlfriend Sloane and his best friend Cameron go through the Art Institute of Chicago – something I’d done dozens of times and even cut school to do so. The three friends stop and stand in front of the three Picassos…Well since then, many people have mimicked the pose – it became a tradition. And their visit to an art museum proved to be an inspiration for young people to do the same. That’s a good thing.”

Karin Jurick’s website