Comprised of lifelong portrait artist Geoffrey Geary and illustrator Heide Oberheide, Vostoria seeks to portray you in a historical setting of your choice, in a way that only oil paint and decades of realist portraiture can deliver.

Vostoria - from the latin ‘Vos’ meaning ‘You’ and ‘Historia’ meaning ‘History’.

Heide and I first met as young art students at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. We had all the same classes for the first semester, and soon found that we shared a love of traditional, realistic 19th century painting. Back then, most Pratt painting instructors were more of the Abstract Expressionist camp. But a few instructors were sympathetic, and helped us in our quest to learn traditional methods. And we quickly discovered other fellow students with similar aims. Those were the days before there was The New York Academy of Art, or The Florence Academy. So between discussions with like-minded classmates, hours of research in the Pratt Library, and extra classes at The Art Students League, we did learn and improve as representational artists. And, being so near NYC, we visited all the great museums, galleries, and auction houses to study masterpieces in person. Thanks to one kind instructor with connections in publishing, we were offered work in the illustration field. In those days, if you wanted to make money painting in a realistic style in oils on canvas, illustration was a viable option. After graduation, Heide worked for a time as teacher, both at Pratt and later at the New School. Eventually, she decided to focus on illustration work. For a few years, I did some book cover work, as well as some advertising and magazine illustration. Gradually, I transitioned into portraiture, occasionally painting a subject of my own choosing.