Congratulations to M. Hansen who placed the winning bid of $1,000 for Junes's silent auction painting, "At the Children's Playground in Sidnev", by Anatoliy Sergeyevich, estimated at $3,500- $4,500.

For this month's auction painting we present "Yalta- Yachts at the Pier" by one of Russia's up and coming masters, Victor Nikolaevich Butko. Victor is a long time friend of the gallery and scion of a great family of Russian artists. He is the heir to a legacy of greatness in Russian Impressionistic art studying at the Academic Dacha under some of the great masters Alexei and Sergei Tkachev and Grigory Chainikov. Butko paints in the tradition of his ancestors, with exquisite artistry and sensitivity, portraying the special beauty of his country's landscape and its people.

Victor N. Butko, "Yalta- Yachts at the Pier",
25" x 35", 2008, Oil on Canvas, Framed
Estimate $5,000 to $6,000
Current Bid $2,000 S. Grau

We are pleased to offer this opportunity to our Gallery clients. This painting would make an exceptional addition to any collection or a great painting to start your collection. We invite you to participate in this month's auction and thank everyone who placed bids last month.

Estimated at $5,000 to $6,000, the current high bid is just $2,000. The next bid is $2,250, followed by minimum bidding increments of $250. Remember, there is no reserve, at the end of the auction the high bid wins! To ensure you don't miss out on a great painting due to a last minute bid, be sure to place a maximum bid.

Bids will be taken via telephone, fax, or e-mail until 7:00 pm MST, Wednesday, July 31st. Follow all the bidding updates on the Gallery's web site.

Tel: 801-755-7072
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Please e-mail bids only to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and make sure your receive confirmation of your bid.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.

 BID FORM

About the Artist

The Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery is pleased and honored to be able to represent the work of Victor N. Butko, scion of a great family of Russian artists. In the tradition of his ancestors, Butko paints with exquisite artistry and sensitivity, portraying the special beauty of his country's landscape and its people.

Victor Nikolaevich Butko is the youngest Russian artist the Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery has ever represented. We are proud to have his art in our gallery, as Victor is the heir to a legacy of greatness in Russian Impressionistic art. It was almost five years ago that legendary Russian artists Alexei and Sergei Tkachev introduced us to Victor Butko. The Tkachevs have known Victor since he was a child. Butko comes from an family of artists. Victor's grandfather and mother have received many honors as artists and they participated in exhibitions around the world. Young Butko spent summers at the family country house at the village of Academic Dacha. The Academic Dacha is half way between St. Petersburg and Moscow and has been a summer painting refuge for generations of Russian artists. That is where, at eight years of age, Butko was first noticed by the grand patriarch brothers of Russian Impressionism. The Tkachevs closely followed the development and career of Victor guiding and mentoring him along the way.

On one of our many visits to Academic Dacha, the brothers invited our group to meet Victor. As a delegation, we went to the small house and studio of the Butko family. Grigoriy Chainikov joined us. Unannounced, we knocked on the door. The young artist was surprised and a bit embarrassed by the attention. Taking charge, Sergei Tkachev began grabbing Butko's paintings and extolling the talent of the young, red-faced artist. Tkachev said that Butko's work was the next generation of greatness. Following the work of the brothers, then Grigoriy Chainikov, the mantle of Russian Impressionism would fall to Victor. Tkachev added, he was quite comfortable with leaving the burden of Russian Impressionism in the talented hands of Victor Nikolaevich Butko. That was the day that we, of the Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery, invited Victor Butko to be our partner. Ever since he has been growing as an artist and creating new jewels in the tradition of Russian Impressionism. He is fulfilling the prophecy of Sergei Tkachev.

Victor N. Butko, b. 1978

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 had 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 the same year, Butko took part in the exhibition of the Moscow Art Union at its gallery in Krymsky Val, and afterwards became a union member. Butko's works are exhibited at galleries throughout Russia.

Exhibitions:
1994 - The exhibition of the MacAL students in the Central House of Art Workers.
1996 - The exhibition of the MacAL students in the State Tretyakov Gallery.
1997 - Autumn exhibition of MAU in the Central Art Gallery in Krimsky Val.
1998 - The Family exhibition at the municipal gallery in Naro-Fominsk.
1998 - The regional exhibition "Moscow-Petersberg", the Central Art Gallery.
1998 - The exhibition of self-portrait in the CAG.
1999 - The All-Russian exhibition "The Autumn in Boldino", dedicated to the memory of A.S. Pushkin.
2000 - The Family exhibition at the "Zamoskvorechy Gallery"
2000 - The All-Russian exhibition "In the Name of God in the CAG"
2001 - The Family exhibition in the Central House of Art Workers, the exhibition of the young painters of MAU, dedicated to the anniversary of the Moscow House of Artists.

MEET VICTOR BUTKO- Boston Voyager, December 2018

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?

I was born in 1978 in Moscow, into the family of artists, Nikolai Butko and Marina Chulovich. My childhood was mostly in the area of Verkhnyaya Maslovka street, where my grandfather, Viktor Chulovich, a well-known Moscow landscape painter also had his studio which perhaps, was one of my most favorite places of childhood. I liked to run around the endless corridors of house number one, climb the stairs to the shelves with paintings, and so on. In addition, there were meetings with artists who often visited my grandfather and he would in return, visit them. The world of art studios is insanely interesting, it can be described for an infinitely long time.

For example, the downstairs studio neighbor of my grandfather was the famous artist Arkady Plastov. In my time the son of Arkady Plastov, Nikolay and his wife Elena Kholodilina worked there. My Grandfather and Plastov were friends and often arranged joint dinners. It was like this: at lunchtime, a conditioned signal - a knock on the heating pipe- and then my grandfather, parents and I, of course, went down a floor below and had dinner. When it was my Grandfather's turn to prepare dinner, he told me to knock on the heating radiator with a wrench. Ten minutes later, the Plastovs arrived and we all dined in his studio. During meals, there were discussions of each other's paintings, upcoming and past exhibitions... endless interesting stories were told, enough for a separate book.

In general, I grew up in a creative atmosphere saturated with vapors of solvents and smells of paints, and I was constantly observing the process of creating paintings. In the summer, this process moved to the village - my grandfather purchased a house near Vyshniy Volochok in the early eighties. Life was different then than it is now - of course. The village was alive, it was full of friends, and even tourists came... in this time, as a child, I was interested in art only during the prolonged rains that often visited that region. The rest of the time was devoted to much more important things - the construction of various kinds of fortifications and "main staffs" of fine aspen and alder. To build them was necessary - because at any time there could be an attack of "white guards" and other characters. In August, our "regiments" began to thin out as the neighborhood friends started to head back to school. At the very end of August, I would also return to the city. Again, the most interesting place was the workshop of my grandfather and there a slow desire began for me to be involved in this particular world - the World of Art.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           "Yalta, Yachts at the Pier"- Framed

To compete with my interest in art could only be my passion for learning different technologies, mostly electric. A victim of this passion was my grandmother's vacuum cleaner. I had long wanted to see what was inside of it... As soon as my grandmother was away - I took the rather unfortunate device from the wall cupboard, picked up the screwdriver and when my grandmother returned she found me sitting on the floor with a screwdriver, surrounded by lifeless remains, which until recently were a vacuum cleaner. That's how my interest in art and technology coexisted in me, they were struggling against each other.

1985 brought new experiences to my life - a rapid flow of knowledge picked me up and attracted me through the waves of school life, continually putting my head on the granite of science. Eventually, my interest in art won, I began to prepare for admission to the famous Moscow Art School and attended preparatory classes in Lavrushinsky Lane. I entered there in 1989. By that time, the new building of the art school was located on the Crimean Val street, next to the Central House of Artists. There, I trained in drawing, painting, and composition under the guidance of teachers VI Borissov, LS Tamashevskaya, LP Besednova, and NI Kozlov. The latter is a truly legendary person: what student of his does not remember the egg, pipe, and suitcase [it was his theory on how to constructing a portrait]. Classes in Moscow Art School began in the autumn - teachers went with us to Kolomenskoye, Kuskovo and Novodevichy Monastery, painting landscape etudes from life.

The first three classes were devoted to the knowledge of watercolor technique, and then to oil paints. In the nineties the school was touched by the wind of change - in 1996, I graduated from the Moscow Academic Art Lyceum at the Russian Academy of Arts. Having graduated from the Lyceum, I decided to move to my grandpa's village house, and devote my time to work in plein air. Nearby the village is the Academic Dacha of artists named after Ilya Repin - a place known and visited by the creative intelligentsia. There was my creative communication, it was a kind of club - artists from different cities and countries got acquainted with each other. Students of art universities came to practice.

In 1997, the Academic Dacha was visited by the famous artist Alexei Gritsai. He was a remarkable teacher, I was lucky to paint next to him. He explained so many nice tricks to me about painting and aerial perspective. As it turned out, this was his last visit to the Dacha. Also, in 1997, I joined the Moscow Union of Artists and began to participate regularly in their local and national exhibitions. My history in the United States began in 2002, with my first solo exhibition in Utah in the McCarthy Gallery. For two weeks, I was not only in Utah, but also visited Nevada - Zion and Las Vegas. The exhibition was a success, and years of good cooperation followed.

In 2013, the town of Plyos hosted a Russian-Italian plein air event. As it turned out, most of the Italian participants were Americans. In this open air, I got to know Ben Fenske, Marc Dalessio, Leo Mancini-Hresco and Tim McGuire. It was a wonderful, full-fledged plein air trip. It was then that the idea arose to arrange something like this in America. And three years later, in 2016, Ben Fenske, with the support of the Grenning Gallery, organized a plein-air trip with the participation of Russian and American artists in Stonington (ME) and Sag Harbor, NY. It culminated in an exhibition of paintings created on the trip. It was a bright event in the cultural life in the Village of Sag Harbor, covered in the press, and which is remembered and spoken of to this day. For me, this event was even more than just an open air - in Stonington, Maine I met my now wife Kelly Carmody, a beautiful person and artist.

Please tell us about your art.

I am an oil painter, mainly in the genre of landscape. I paint mostly from nature, sometimes I make edits in the studio. As can be seen from my story, I am from a family of realist artists, therefore; realistic painting was a natural choice for me.

I go with my easel and canvas, as a rule, to a pre-selected place at the time when I can observe the state of nature necessary for me. I usually work for two or three hours on one session; sometimes less when the condition is fleeting, such as twilight. I continue to go to the same place at the same time as many times as I need to complete the painting. I use oil paints of different manufacturers, professional quality. As a solvent, I mainly use the mineral spirit without odor, without adding anything. Sometimes, I use turpentine. I usually need several flat bristle brushes of different sizes, and a pair of small Kolinsky brushes for details.

I am inspired by the emotions that I experience when I observe the conditions of nature. I especially like the tense moments - before or after the storm, the first snow, the spring flood, the moonlight, twilight, dawns, etc. I try to bring these fleeting impressions to the viewer. Ultimately, art is a mediator that interacts with the personality of the viewer, making the strings of his soul sound in a certain way. And I try to create a good melody.

Do you have any advice for other artists? Any lessons you wished you learned earlier?

Ideally, the artist should not go on about the popular trends at the moment. He must educate society by asking of them a high standard, instilling good taste, making him think, and eventually getting better. For this and inside the artist himself, work must take place - to feel and perceive the world around him, and bring it to the viewer, forcing him to empathize through graphics, painting, sculpture, poster, etc.