Newsletter

September 2014
  
Welcome to the September Newsletter!
Добро пожаловать в рассылку Cентября!! 
   

  

Butko, Victor Nikolaevich, "The Lilacs, The Spring Rains" 31�'' x 39�'', 2006, Oil on Canvas
Estimate $6,000- 7,000, Current Bid, $1,000 A. Lampropoulos

September Silent Auctions

    

As rare as an asteroid in Chelyabinsk. This month the Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery has TWO paintings for our auction!  

  

The first is a wonderful and quite large still life by one of Russia's most talented young artists, Victor Butko. We have carried Victor's work for much of his life. His talent has blossomed and his reputation has grown with his experience. We first met Victor at the famed Academic Datcha Art Colony where he lives 7 or 8 months a year. Schooled over the years by the great Russian masters who also lived and worked there, Yuri Kugach, the Tkachev Brothers Grigori Chianakov and so many other of Russia's finest.
 

The second auction painting this month is by the well-known Ukrainian artist, Yuri Kirilovich Bogatyrenko. 

 

Bogatirenko Y. K, "Odessa, Arkadia- Day on the Sea"
8�'' x 22'', 1957, Oil on Board
Estimate $3,000- $4,000, Current Bid $1,000, S. Griffin
Bogatrenko is most famous as a talented movie and theatre set designer during the Golden era Soviet film. However, despite winning many awards for that work, Yuri Kirilovich who was professionally trained as an artist, never gave up his hand as a traditional oil and canvas painter. He became equally well-known for his unvarnished, minimal artistic style. Because of this caught the favor of Odessa Artists union and many national and regional museums throughout Russia.  

 

 

 

Valeri Kokurin, "Landscape"
14" x 11�", oil on board, 1983, $5,000

New Works From the Vladimir School of Landscape Painting

 

We are excited to offer for the first time a select few works from the famed "Vladimir School of Landscape Painting". 


The 1950's-1960's was a meaningful time for the development of Russian art. The art format of this period was more expressive and individualistic and deviated significantly from the basic principles of socialist realism. 

 

The style introduced by Nikolay Mokrov (1926-1996), together with three other artists from the city of Vladimir, Kim Britov, Vladimir Yukin and Valeri Kokurin, became the trademark of the Vladimir School of landscape painting. Vladimir School artists chose traditional Russian scenery and landscapes as the central focus of their works. They then transformed these traditional scenes through the use of new magical color schemes. 

   

Read More...

 

 

Pavel Korin, "Requiem, The Passing of Russia"- Tretyakov Gallery Mowcow

  

It is one of the greatest mysteries in Russian art: At the

height of Stalin's repressions, the artist Pavel Korin spent years painting a sweeping ode to the Russian Orthodox Church, and stayed alive.

 

Korin's "Requiem" was inspired by the funeral of Patriarch Tikhon, whose death in 1925 marked the effective end of the church's opposition to Bolshevik rule. Korin's patron Maxim Gorky convinced him to rename the work "The Passing of Rus," lending it a more neutral air; Korin, however, would always call it "Requiem."

  

The artist created dozens of oil portraits and sketches in preparation for a planned monumental painting. However, over the course of four decades, he never touched a paintbrush to the enormous canvas he secured for its creation. The blank, 40-square-meter monolith now stands in the middle of a Tretyakov Gallery exhibition hall, as it did for decades in the center of Korin's studio on Malaya Pirogovskaya Ulitsa.

   

Fully restored after languishing for years in Korin's studio, his studies for "Requiem" are now on display for the first time at the State Tretyakov Gallery.
  


Gaiduk, Victor Kirillovich, "Still Life"
7�'' x 10�'', 1970's, Gouache on Paper, $700


"The Affordable Art Stroll"
Friday September 26th
Featuring Works Under $1,000
 
For this month's gallery stroll, The Park City Gallery Association is promoting as its theme "Affordable Works" and Gallery will have a great selection of works,both new and old for one thousand dollars or less.

The Gallery Stroll takes place the last Friday of every month and is sponsored by the Park City Gallery Association. The stroll takes place from 6 to 9 p.m.
  

Enjoy the newsletter!

   

Stephen Justesen, Gallery Director   

   

September Silent Auctions!auction
   

Congratulations to S. Gertsch who called the Gallery with one minute to spare and placed the winning bid of just $3,000 for August's hotly contested silent auction work "Sunny Day" by Alexander Vasilievich Kushnirenko, Estimate $6,000- $7,000.
 

For our September auction we have TWO great offers! The first work is a wonderful and quite large still life by one of Russia's most talented up and coming artists Victor Nikolaevich Butko, with a current high bid of just $1,000. The next bid is $1,250 followed by minimum bidding increments of $250.

 
The second is a simple yet intriguing seascape by the renowned Ukrainian artist Yuri Kirilovich Bogatyrenko, with a current high bid of just $1,000. The next bid is $1,250, followed by minimum bidding increments of $250.

Don't miss this rare opportunity to add one or both of these great works to your collection!

We invite you to participate in this month's auction and thank everyone who placed bids last month. Please note that you may place a maximum bid and the Gallery will bid on your behalf up to your maximum. By placing a maximum bid you will be assured you are not out bid at the last minute. Bids will be taken via telephone, fax, or e-mail until the auction ends at 6:00 pm, Tuesday September 30th. Follow all the bidding updates on the Gallery's web site.

 
Butko, Victor Nikolaevich, "The Lilacs, The Spring Rains"
31�'' x 39�'', 2006, Oil on Canvas
Estimate $6,000- 7,000, Current Bid, $1,000 A. Lampropoulos
Bogatirenko Y. K, "Odessa Arkadia- Day on the Sea"
8�'' x 22'', 1957, Oil on Board
Estimate $3,000- $4,000, Current Bid $1,000 S. Griffin


Victor N. Butko B. 1978 

  
This month we present as one of the silent auction painting a work by one of Russia's most talented up and coming artists Victor Nikolaevich Butko.  He first came to our attention as a student of the Tkachev Brothers and Gregori Chaianikov. Butko, from an artistic family, has spent much of his life at the Academic Dacha learning and watching from the great masters there.  He is the next generation of Russian Impressionistic artists and his paintings are ripe for the seasoned collector to begin building a collection. We at the McCarthey Gallery are thrilled to present Victor Nikolaevich BUTKO'S painting "The Lilacs, The Spring Rains," as one of our September auction picks.

Butko was born in 1978 in Moscow into a veritable artistic dynasty.  Several generations of the family were well-known artists, including his grandfather, Nikaolai Konstantinovich Chulovich and great-uncle Viktor Konstatinovich Chulovich (both graduates of the Imperial Stroganov Art School), as well as Honored Art Worker of Russia Viktor Nikolaevich Chulovich (a wonderful landscape painter who was a student of P.I. Petrovichev), and of course his own parents, Nikolai Butko and Marina Chulovich.

From early childhood, Butko was involved in the creative work of his family.  His first art lessons were given by his parents.  His grandfather also greatly influenced his work, especially landscapes.  Butko's still life painting style was developed from exposure to an incredible collection of objects to be found in the family's studio.  There was a collection of antique items which his grandfather brought back from numerous trips around the country:  Russian and Uzbek samovars, wicker baskets, pitchers, jugs, etc.  Butko painted from them for his first still-life works.

In 1989, Butko entered the Moscow Academy Art Lyceum under the supervision of the Russian Academy of Arts where he studied watercolor and oil painting.  In 1994, he took part in his first art exhibition, in the Art Lyceum Students' Exhibition at the Central House of Art Workers.  Two years later, he took part at the Lyceum exhibition which was held at the Tretyakov Gallery.

After graduation from art school, Butko went to Vishny Volochok, not far from the Academic country house for painters, where he continued to study painting, being especially influenced by the works of A.M. and A.A. Gritsai, and N. Fedeosov.  In 1997, he was able to spend the summer with A.N. Gritsai, an experience that greatly influenced Butko professionally.
  
In 1997, Butko also took part in the exhibition of Moscow Art Union at its gallery in Krymsky Val, and afterwards became a Member of the Moscow Art Union. Butko's work is exhibited at galleries throughout Russia.

 

Yuri Kirilovich Bogatyrenko Юрій Кирилович Богатиренко, B. 1932
Ylovaisk (Donetsk Region), Ukraine

Yuri Kirilovich Bogatyrenko is a well-known Ukrainian production designer (filmographer). He graduated in 1957 from the All-Union Institute of Cinematography in Moscow where he was a pupil of F. Bogorodski and Y. Pimenov. He was many years active at the Odessa Movie Studio where he participated in production of many popular movies in the whole UdSSR.

Born on 01.04.1932, in the city Ilovaysk Donetsk region. He graduated from the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (1957). Teacher by profession - Yuri Pimenov, F. Bogorodsky. Artist movie. Major works: thin. draw. movies - "Two Theodora" (1958), "The first trolley" (1961), "Dangerous tour" (1969), "The Precipice" (1991). Member of the Union of Artists (1962).

  

A Sample of New Works! sport
Smirnov, Yuri Alexandrovich, "Great Ustug, Spring is Coming"
19�'' x 27�'', 1968, Oil on Board, $1,900
Erler, Lydiya Nickolayevna, "Cleaning the Rifle"
27�'' x 19�'', (70 x 50 cm) 1961, Oil on Board $3,500
Kushnirenko, Alexander Vasilievich "Spring Day"
12�'' x 26'', (32.50 x 66 cm) 1961, Oil on Board $2,700
Akinshin, Mikhail Vasilievich, "The Pond"
17�'' x 27�'', (44.50 x 69.50 cm) 1966, Oil on Board, $2,800
Pokarzhevskey, Peter Dmitrievich, "On the Boat"
13�'' x 18�'', (33.50 x 47 cm) 1962, Oil on Board, $4,000
Sukhov, Aleksandr Pavlovich, "Landscape with Mountains"
19�'' x 27�'', (49 x 69.50 cm) 1964, Oil on Board, $4,600

 

Cathy Locke, "Cathedral of the Annunciation"- Moscow
12'' x 9'', 2014, Oil on Canvas, $950
Cathy Locke, "The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood"- St. Petersburg
12'' x 9'', 2014, Oil on Canvas, $950
 

 

 

 

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

 


 

We are pleased to present two wonderful works by a new artist to the Gallery, Cathy Locke. Every summer she lectures on both Russian and European art in Moscow and St. Petersburg; and she is currently writing a book on Russian art. 

 

Cathy holds a B.F.A. from Art Center College of Design and a M.F.A. from the Academy of Art University, both with honors. She currently teaches a variety of figurative courses in the graduate department at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Cathy has received accolades for her work from the Pastel Society of America, Art Directors Club of New York, Society of Illustrators in Los Angeles, Connecticut Society of Portrait Artists, the Pastel Journal and Campaign Papers. She has received two Pastel 100 Awards placing her as one of the top 100 pastelists in the world. Her work is collected by civic institutions, colleges and universities, and private patrons across the United States, Canada and Europe. 

 

Cathy's work has been recently featured in two museum shows, including a special honor where her work was hand selected from the Pastel Society of America's Annual Exhibition to show at the Butler Institute of American Art. The other was an exhibition at the Morris Graves Museum titled "Motion and Meaning."

New Works From the Vladimir School of Landscape Painting!vladimir 

 

Britov, Kim Nikolaevich, "Snow Scene with Blue", 11" x 8", oil on board, $8,000

Instead of the impressionistic character exhibited by artists of the 1950's, the artists of the Vladimir School worked in a new and explosive expressionistic style. The artists integrated into their works the full range and effects of colors including abrupt contrasts and dissonances. This special energy achieved through the use of colors, emphasized by the simplification of form, was similar to German Expressionism and French Fauve art. Soviet artists had ignored these artistic influences since the 1930's. The artistic methods of Russian painters were close to those of post impressionism.

 

Kokurin, Valery G., "Church with Trees/Flames"
13" x 13", oil on canvas, 1983, $7,500
Modorov, Nikolai, "Painting of Lake with Trees" 20"x 16", oil on board, 1988, $7,000
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, the works had a significantly different form of expression. The artist's paintings were less dramatic than those of European post impressionists whose works had only a secondary influence upon artists of this era. Preponderant to the origin of this new style of Russian expression was the tradition of icon painting and folk art of Mstera and Gorokhovets. In spite of all innovations in Mokrov's artworks the original prototype can never be transformed into pure abstraction. Using a small portion of realistic landscapes, Mokrov managed to capture the most subtle states of nature. Instead of the intrinsic ability of the sun to transform an ordinary scene into a plenitude of various hues and reflections, he took strong bright colors which, when splashed with light, became an artistic substitute for the sun -- a creative metaphor. Decorative flat compositions ignore any optical illusions.  

Mokrov, Nikolai Alekseevich, "Snow Scene"
17 x 12", oil on board, 1982, $6,000

The paintings are perceived by the viewer as if seen from a lower, horizontal perspective. First the plane, then the central focus of the composition divided by colors into a format of center, foreground and background, varied by colors but organized according to rhythm. Predominant color focal points are repeated. By increasing the level of the horizon, Mokrov makes the first plane of the painting seem closer to the viewer. All these elements existing in Mokrov's art works are not only in accordance with decorative law but in accordance with his first impression and memory of the original landscape. Mokrov's art ideas enriched not only the Vladimir school of landscape, but initiated a new form of development for the entire realistic tradition of Russian painting. 
 

Mokrov, Nikolai Alekseevish, "Snow Scene with Church"
13� x 10", oil on board, signed, $4,000

 

Pavel KorinRequiem
"Requiem, The Passing of Russia"- Tretykov Gallery

 

This special exhibition is devoted to one of the greatest and most mysterious artistic projects of the first half of the 20th Century - one that was left unfinished - the painting 'Requiem. The Passing of Russia.' by Pavel Korin. For almost all his life Pavel Korin (1892-1967) was contemplating the composition of this painting and drawing portraits of the subjects of it, yet he never actually started work on the huge canvas that had been prepared for him.

 

For the first time after a major restoration work the Tretyakov Gallery exhibits the entire body of portraits, and sketches for the painting, including those intended for the large-format canvas.
 

Pavel D. Korin, Requiem Sketch "Vanishing Rus", 1935-1959, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

To modern viewers, Korin's studies may seem conservative, a throwback to the realism of Ilya Repin and Alexander Ivanov. But at the time of their creation, their wizened faces and flowing purple robes were a true act of defiance.

 

"It was a strike against Stalinism, because it was a call to lofty, idealistic art," said curator Natalia Alexandrova. "In the Soviet era, this was the most forbidden path. It didn't play according to the rules."

  

After the Soviets came to power, thousands of priests were shot in a bloody anti-religious campaign. The staunchly anti-Soviet Tikhon, who was imprisoned in Donskoi Monastery for several years, was viewed as Russian Orthodoxy's last defender against the new regime.
 

Shimoigumeniya. 1935


 
Tikhon's death sent shock waves through Russian society. On April 12, 1925, up to 50,000 mourners gathered at Donskoi for his funeral, in a scene that Korin would remember for the rest of his life. "Evening, just before dusk, quiet and clear," he wrote in his notebook. "People with lighted candles, tears, mourning song." A young beggar raised his "wild, piercing alto" in a wailing chant:

 

"We lift our hearts on spears."

 

Awestruck by the mass grief he saw around him, he began sketching the long, stern face of Archdeacon Kholmogorov, one of the leaders presiding over the service. Within several days, Korin decided to render the scene as an epic canvas, inspired by Russia's 19th century tradition of monumental painting.

 

Korin was born to a provincial family of icon painters, and had moved to Moscow to apprentice at Donskoi's icon workshop. With the help of his mentor, the artist Mikhail Nesterov, Korin was able to convince Nesterov's confessor and one of the mourners, Metropolitan Trifon Turkestana, to pose for him, despite the project's tremendous risks. Turkestana is painted as a hobbled figure in brilliant crimson, face turned wondrously toward heaven as in a Renaissance Annunciation Scene. Turkestana also secured the participation of other church figures, including the Bolshevik puppet patriarch Sergius.

 

As Korin threw himself into the project, he attracted the attention of Gorky, who took him on a tour of Europe and secured him a handsome new studio. After toying with a variety of scenes, including a procession set in the Italian mountains, Korin finally settled on the Kremlin's historic Uspensky Cathedral as a backdrop. The study that is thought to be Korin's final plan for the work depicts a moment at the end of the service, as those assembled prepare to leave the cathedral. They stand paused, looking into the distance as if waiting for someone. 

Trifon Turkestana

 

While heading the Pushkin Museum's restoration workshop, Korin continued to paint character studies for his "Requiem," including nuns, peasants, beggars and the traditional character of the "holy fool." Perhaps the most intriguing figures he depicted were a set of monks who led a secret society at the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery. The ringleader of the underground circle, which opposed Bolshevik interference in the Church, was the fiery young monk Fyodor Bogoyavlensky, who appears with long hair and a pale face. In the final composition, he stands directly opposite Patriarch Sergius, his adversary (whom Korin called a "traitor").


By World War II, many of the people whom Korin depicted were exiled or dead. Bogoyavlensky was tortured in a Moscow prison before dying under unknown circumstances. After Gorky's death in 1935, Korin lived in fear, keeping a packed bag by the door in the event of his arrest. But somehow, the painter was left untouched.

"How was it possible that in the Soviet era such a thing could be created and survive?'" Alexandrova said. "We set out to answer this question, and we couldn't."

 

Korin's diaries reveal nothing of why he was spared. Despite his religious activities, he found a place in the regime as an official artist, which may have secured his position. After Stalin's death, he was awarded a variety of prestigious commissions, including the mosaics and stained glass at Komsomolskaya and Novoslobodskaya metro stations.

 

In Stalin's day, it was impossible to speak openly of "Requiem." This veil of secrecy gave the painting cult status among a new, younger generation of artists who came of age during the Khrushchev Thaw. In the 1960s, Korin's studio became a place of pilgrimage for emerging talents such as Viktor Popkov.

 

Metropolitan Sergiun
The "Requiem" portraits were the center of attention.

"It felt like something absolutely new, no less urgent and modern than the avant-garde, which already seemed like a relic," recalled the artist Pavel Nikonov in an interview for the exhibition catalogue. No less remarkable was the blank canvas - standing, as another artist put it, "like a tomb in the middle of the room."

 

After accumulating decades of dust and mold, the two-ton blank canvas required a separate restoration. Korin's studio is currently closed for renovation; when it reopens, the portraits and blank canvas will be moved there for permanent display.

 

Tretyakov head restorer Alina Churkina is the daughter of one of Korin's students, who posed for his study of a peasant father and son. As she was growing up, her father "talked openly about the canvas," Churkina said. "We lived with the deepest respect for Korin."

 

Alexandrova discovered "Requiem" when she began working at the Tretyakov in the 1980s, when then-director Yuri Korolyov created a display of previously unseen Soviet art.

 

"I ran into the hall, late as usual, and saw this old [nun]. I looked at it... and thought, 'How horrible, where did he get this wrinkled old lady from?'" she said. "I'd never seen the kind of clothing that she was wearing. I was dumbfounded. Yuri Konstantinovich came up to me and said, 'Well, what did you think Soviet art was?'

 

"It was a moment not only of shock, but of the realization of my own ignorance," she said.

 

The younger generation could sometimes be disappointed by the quiet, serious artist's refusal to speak out directly. In the 1960s, a group that included Nikonov asked Korin to sign a letter in support of Yuly Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky, the writers whose persecution marked the end of the Thaw. Korin responded, "Fellows, don't get caught up in politics. It's not our business. Our business is to make art."

 

Pavel Korin, (1892-1967)

"For many years, I felt disappointed," Nikonov said. At the time, Korin was being considered for the Lenin Prize, and the young artists suspected him of cowardly trying to protect his career.

 

"But now, I realize that Korin was right," Nikonov said. "An artist's public statement isn't what he signs, but what he paints. And through his works Pavel Dmitrievich proved himself to be a true fighter."

 

There are a variety of theories as to why Korin never completed his masterpiece. Some say he never resolved the proportions; others that he gradually realized that "the time for monumental paintings had ended," said co-curator Vera Golovina. A third version holds that he meant to leave it blank all along, a memorial to a lost civilization.

 

"Korin believed that if you can't achieve the ideal, don't attempt it," Golovina said. "Simply do what you can."

contact    Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery  

444 Main Street, P.O. Box 1695, Park City, UT 84060  

Tel: 435.658.1691  Fax: 435.658.1730  

website: www.McCartheyGallery.net
 
Fall Hours:  Monday - Thursday 11 am to 7 pm.
Friday and Saturday 11 am to 9 pm.
Sunday 11 am to 6 pm 
Open until 9 pm for Gallery Stroll (the last Friday of every month)

  

            Stephen Justesen       Robin Valline          Jannett Heckert          Daniele Bradley      
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