Welcome to The McCarthey Gallery

The Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery is one of the foremost dealers in the United States dealing with Russian Impressionistic art.  The Gallery maintains an extensive inventory of collectible works by Russia's most respected artists during the period of 1930 to 1980.  The Gallery carefully selects paintings that are historically significant, original in composition, interesting in form and beautiful in their depiction of the human spirit.  We have been working in Russia for many years and have developed close personal relationships with many of the artists and their families.  Together with our associated gallery in Russia, Dacha Art, and our Russian partners, we maintain extremely close ties with the arts community in Russia and the former Soviet republics.  In addition to our Russian specialization, the TKM Gallery is proud to work with talented artists from other countries who have the spirit of the Russian art.

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December Silent Auction!

Belykh, Alexei Pavlovich
"Warm Evening"
19¼'' x 15½'', (49 x 39.50 cm), 1991, Oil on Board, Framed
Meg# 2037, Estimated at $4,000 to $5,000, Current Bid $1,750 by M. Hobbs.

For this months silent auction, we are pleased to offer a rare museum quality painting that celebrates the colorful beauty of the Northern Russian forest, "Warm Evening" by one of the great Russian landscape painters, Alexei Pavlovich Belykh.

In the early 1990's, we had the honor of hosting Alexey Belykh and his wife, the artist Nadezhda Aleksandrovna. We spent a month traveling USA, from New York City, Washington D.C. San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and of course Las Vegas! It is hard to find two more enthusiastic and knowledgeable guests. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chicago Institute of Art to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, the Belykh's were like children in a candy store. They had to be dragged out at closing time. Their souls were those of artists.

While we were staying in New York, Mrs Belykh discovered American ketchup. At dinner she soaked her steak in the red sauce. The following morning, even in NYC, she attracted attention with the the breakfast crowd at the InterContinental Hotel, as she put an inch of ketchup between the layers of her pancakes. Nadezhda loved ketchup!

Of the many works offered at our auctions, this painting is one of my favorites. It is an important work by a great well respected artist who received the People's Artist of the RSFS and Honored Artist of the RSF awards.

We invite you to participate in this month's auction and thank everyone who placed bids 's last month. This is a rare opportunity to add a beautiful work by a highly acclaimed artist to your collection.

Estimated at $4,000 to $5,000, the current high bid is just 1,750! The next bid is $2,000 followed by minimum bidding increments of $250. Remember, there is no reserve, at the end of the auction the high bid wins!

Bids will be taken via telephone, or e-mail until 7:00 pm MST, Tuesday , January 4th. Follow all the bidding updates on the Gallery's website.

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..

BELYKH, Alexey Pavlovich (1923- 2017)

People's Artist of the RSFS
Honored Artist of the RSFSR,
Professor, Honorary Citizen of the cities of Kostroma, Chuguev, Lozovaya

Alexei P. Belykh, a Kostroma painter, an Honored Painter of Russia, was born on June 3, 1923 in the village of Krutets, Orel Region.

Since his early childhood, he dreamed of becoming a painter, but his dream came true only after the Great Patriotic War. He came to Moscow to enter the Military Academy but after visiting the Tretyakov Gallery, the future painter gave up the idea of making a military career and entered the Surikov Institute (1952). His favorite painter was Vrubel, but he was also captivated by Serov, Levitan and Repin.

As a student, Belykh visited the Baltic Republics, Siberia, and Lake Baikal. The grandeur and scale of the Bratskaya Hydro-Electric Plant was the inspiration for his diploma work, First Builders of Bratskaya Electric Power Station.

Belykh's teachers at the Institute were I.I. Orlov, P.D. Pokarzhevsky, V.G. Tsyplakov.

Upon graduating from the Institute in 1958, Belykh went to the city of Kostroma where he lived and worked combining his creative work while teaching at the Kostroma Art College (1958-64) and Pedagogical Institute (1964). He created a number of thematic canvases about Kostroma forest workers: "Youth brigade", "Lumberjack", "On a rafting road. Change is underway". A number of portrait works belong to the same period. At the same time, Belykh participated in regional, zonal, republican, all-Union exhibitions with thematic canvases, portraits and landscapes.

In 1965 Belykh was awarded the title of the "Honored Painter of Russia" for his contributions to the art world.

The range of creative interests of Belykh is very wide; he works at subject paintings with no less desire than at portraits and landscapes. The main themes of his numerous subject paintings are man, labor, nature and their correlation and unity.

In the 1960s Belykh made a lot of pictures, the main characters of which are people whose whole life is closely connected with the forest. He depicted woodcutters, rafters, whose hard labor is void of any external romanticism ("On Small Rivers", "A Woodcutter", 1963).

In a series devoted to the subject, there are such pictures as "Woodcutters-a Youth Brigade", "Indian Summer," and "Veteran". In all these pictures a lyrical note is vivid, be it a portrait of a young lad, or the image of a woman living on the Volga River ("Volzhanka"), or the image of the War and Labor Veteran.

Depicting the people of labor Belykh always resorts to landscape as a means of describing the models, their individual features. Lyricism is one of the cornerstones of Belykh's outlook. One can clearly see his warmth towards people.

The Man of Labor is a very important but not a single subject in his canvases. He is interested in Man's life in all its manifestations. A bright joy of the happiness of maternity fills up his pictures such as "In April", in which one can notice a deep, exciting poetry. The same joy and feeling of happy childhood colors is seen in the portrait of Belykh's daughter "Lyubasha" who is depicted among dandelions.

Belykh also paints a lot of portraits. He depicts numerous portraits of woodcutters, collective-farm workers, Soviet Army soldiers. His portraits are remarkable for their psychological depth and the painter's ability to underline the main characteristic features of models. His portraits of children are full of tenderness, truth of children's world and great expressiveness.

Landscapes occupy a special place in the master's work. Belykh painted many landscapes. In bright harmony of the surrounding world the painter saw the charm of life itself and human existence.
The artist's rainbow palette glorifies the banks of the Volga, the nature of the Central Russian steppe, and architectural monuments of Kostroma.

From 1960 to 1985, Belykh worked as a teacher of special disciplines in the graphic arts department of the Kostroma Pedagogical Institute named after N.A.Nekrasov, in 1968 he was awarded the academic title of professor.

In the Kostroma Higher Military Command School of Chemical Defense, thematic exhibitions of A. Belykh's works were organized: "Around Italy", "The Native Land". The author presented the school with a portrait of cadet A. Kudrin, which laid the foundation for the creation of a permanent art gallery at the school.

Belykh participated in numerous art exhibits at home and abroad. He had several solo exhibits. His art works can now be found in the collections of several Soviet museums and the Fleischer Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona as well as in private collections in Japan, France, and the United States.

The works of A.P. Belykh are kept in the Kostroma Museum of Fine Arts, the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War, in other museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Chuguev, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Tula, Kaliningrad, galleries in the USA, Germany, Finland, Italy.

People's Artist of the RSFSR, Honored Artist of the RSFSR, Professor. Honorary Citizen of the cities of Kostroma, Chuguev and Lozovaya. He was awarded the Orders of the Patriotic War of I and II degrees, the Red Star, the Badge of Honor, medals for the liberation of Warsaw, for the capture of Konigsberg, for the capture of Berlin and others.

He died in Kostroma on February 11, 2017.

Awards
• Honored Artist of the RSFSR
• Honored Artist of the RSFSR
• People's Artist of the RSFSR
• Order of the Patriotic War I degree
• Order of the Patriotic War II degree
• Order of the Red Star
• Order of the Badge of Honor
• Order of Friendship
• Honorary Citizen of the city of Lozovaya (1990
• Honorary Citizen of the city of Kostroma (2001)
• Honorary Citizen of the city of Chuguev
Literature Alexey Belykh. A celebration of life and love. M.B. 2008.
Buzin A.I. Alexey Belykh People's Artist of Russia. Kostroma: Kostroma Regional Duma, 2000.

e development and career of Victor guiding and mentoring him along the way.

Read More on Victor N. Butko.....

Russian & Soviet Impressionism
Russia's Rich Cultural Heritage

Russia's rich cultural heritage represents the best of human creativity. Its literature, music, visual and performing arts and architecture are among the most profound, compelling and beautiful expressions of the human spirit.

Much of this rich heritage is well known in the United States, such as the writing of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, the music of Peter Tchaikovsky, Serge Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, the painting of Ilya Repin and Vassily Kadinsky, the architecture of the Kremlin and State Hermitage Museum and the dance of the Bolshoi Ballet.

Less well known in this tradition of creativity is the painting of the Russian Impressionist period, lasting from approximately 1930 to 1980. Russian Impressionism made an important contribution to the cultural heritage of Russia, but until recently, little has been known of its beauty and quality and its leading artists because of Soviet isolationism. During this period much of the cultural life in the Communist Soviet Union was denied Western exposure. The demise of Communism, the lifting of the Iron Curtain and the movement towards freedom and democracy of the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States has allowed the world the opportunity to experience a unique and important historical past through the art work.

It is now being collected and recognized by art historians, museum directors, curators and collectors as some of the best art produced in the twentieth century. 

"Soviet Impressionism"- Vern G. Swanson

From a unique set of circumstances that would be impossible to duplicate, Soviet Art from 1930 to 1980 was the 20th century's major realist school of painting. It powerfully expresses itself with a simple clarity of pictorial language, consummate adeptness and truthful portrayal of life. The Soviet artist acted as a willing collaborator with and portrayer of the aspirations of society. This contrasted with Western models where artists were typically alienated from their community. Acceptance will come, using the Soviet phrase, because it is "historically inevitable". It is already to a certain extent here with the pictures from the period increasingly passing through the sale rooms of Europe and North America. This book should give wider understanding of this underrated but artistically exciting movement in Soviet art.

Read more about Russian Impressionism...