Welcome to The McCarthey GalleryThe 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. Read more about the McCarthey Gallery.... |
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AUGUST'S NO RESERVE SILENT AUCTIONS First and foremost, we extend our congratulations to the winning bidders of the last Silent Auction! For our August Silent Auctions, we proudly present a rare opportunity to add two beautiful works by highly acclaimed artists to your collection. The first, a vibrant, confident, colorful work, by the noted artist Mikhail, G. The first, a vibrant, confident, colorful work, by the noted artist Mikhail, G. Platunov, "Conversation". The second a magical landscape, masterfully painted by the skilled Nina Volkova "Ukrainian Marsh." We are thrilled to extend an invitation to you to place bids in August's exclusive auction. We deeply appreciate everyone who participated and placed bids in the last auction, making it a resounding success.
Volkova, Nina
"Ukrainian Marsh" belongs to the distinctive tradition of Russian and Ukrainian planar landscape painting — a school shaped by two centuries of academic training, yet insulated from the pressures of the commercial art world by both the Soviet system and the sheer scale of the region's untouched wilderness. That isolation, paired with the singular quality of light found in the forests and marshlands of the era, gave rise to a generation of landscape painters with a truly unique visual language. The painting captures this sensibility at its height. Rendered in a deep, muted palette, the painting conveys the starkness of the winter landscape, while a flowing river cutting through the scene hints at the coming thaw — a quiet suggestion of spring and renewal beneath the barren surface. The tension between stillness and movement, cold and coming warmth, gives the piece its emotional pull. The palette is subdued and silvery — grey-lavender sky, pewter water, bleached winter grass — putting it somewhere in that raw in-between season of late autumn or early spring. That's not an accident: Russian and Ukrainian landscape painters, following the Itinerant tradition of Levitan and Savrasov, were drawn to exactly this kind of unglamorous, transitional light. It's melancholy rather than picturesque. In the foreground, quick, calligraphic strokes of reeds and dry grass frame the scene and pull the eye back across the water toward a low, dark tree line — a classic Ukrainian river and composition. The loose, direct handling and close attention to the marshy ground itself — patches of old snow, waterlogged earth, scrubby growth, make "Ukrainian Marsh" a strong and representative example of mid-20th-century Ukrainian landscape painting, by one of the era's foremost artists.
Volkova, Nina Pavlovna, 1917-1993
Born January 28, 1917 in the village of Uber, Kirov Region, Volkova graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Art College in 1936, studying under M. Panin, and from the Kiev Art Institute in 1946, where her teachers were K. Eleev, K. Trochimenko, and M. Sharonov. She began exhibiting in Republican shows in 1947 and in All-Union and international exhibitions from 1948, and was a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. Working primarily in easel painting, she was recognized as a master of genre painting, still life, and landscape, with a particular gift for achieving the intense open-air (plein air) impression central to landscape painting. She lived and worked in Kiev until her death in 1993. Her best-known works — "In the Days of the German Occupation" (1946), "Girls of Krasnodon" (1947), "On the Day Off on the Dnieper" (1951), "Farmers' Collective Farm" (1960), and a portrait of General F. T. Umansky (1964–65) — trace the standard arc of a Soviet Socialist Realist painter of the war generation: wartime memory painting, Komsomol/heroic-youth subject matter (the Krasnodon girls were young Soviet partisans executed by the Nazis, a common postwar theme), collective-farm genre scenes, and official portraiture. Her posthumous reach extended well beyond Ukraine, with exhibitions in England (1998), a solo show in Germany (1999), "From Russia to Russia" in Kaliningrad (2001), the International Art Salon (2007), Slovakia (2009), and Luxembourg (2011, at the RCSC Exhibition Hall). Her work is held in museum, gallery, and private collections in Ukraine and abroad, and she is listed in Matthew Bown's Dictionary of Twentieth Century Russian and Soviet Painters. View Framed Image
Platunov, Mikhail Georgievich
"Conversation" — has a nice, confident energy to it — very much that mid-century Soviet portrait style with an Impressionist loosening around the edges. The subject, two young girls caught mid-secret. One's facing us head-on, the other's turned away — all we get of her is an ear, a red ribbon, and a tumble of dark hair. That's actually the smartest move in the painting: instead of two faces competing for attention, we get one girl's expression to read and ones is a total mystery. It makes you feel like you're eavesdropping, trying to guess what's being said just from that slightly wary, thoughtful look on the first girl's face. The painting highlights several interesting contrasts. The dress and background are loose and splashy, confident strokes of blue, white, hits of pink and red thrown down fast. But the face slows way down: soft, careful blending in the skin, real volume in the cheeks and brow. That push-pull between a tightly rendered face and a loosely thrown-together dress is an old trick, but it works — your eye stays locked on her expression. The painting portrays a real tenderness between two close friends. This is that Russian/Soviet genre tradition of catching kids in an actual unposed moment rather than posing them for a "cute kids" picture. She's not performing for the painter — she looks genuinely absorbed, a little guarded, listening. That's what gives it some real emotional honesty instead of feeling decorative. "Conversation" is a warm, confidently painted piece — a good example of mid-century Soviet realist portraiture with an Impressionist touch that would make a great addition to any collection!
Anatoly Ivanovich Platunov (Platunov) 1930-2001
Born October 18, 1930 in Kovrov, Vladimir Oblast, and died December 17, 2001 in Ufa. After the war his family moved to Vilnius, where he studied privately with painter Vytautas Varanka before enrolling in the painting faculty of the Lithuanian SSR State Art Institute, graduating in 1955. That year he settled in Ufa, drawn by a lifelong ambition: to paint the Ural Mountains — among the oldest on Earth — as a witness to the origins of human culture. Alongside his "Ancient Urals" cycle, he pursued an extensive study of the Bashkir people whose culture is bound to those mountains, producing numerous sketches of Bashkir women, whom he saw as the keepers of their people's traditions. He worked for the Bashkir Artistic-Production Combine until 1984 and remained in Ufa for the rest of his life. He joined the Union of Artists of the USSR in 1966 and the Union of Artists of Bashkortostan in 1961, and was named Honored Artist of the Bashkir ASSR in 1990. Platonov's realism is defined by a distinctive fusion: the colorful, painterly sensibility of the Lithuanian school combined with the rigorous draftsmanship of the Russian academic tradition. This is especially evident in his portraits, his most complex body of work. For Platonov, a sitter was never a generic type but a specific individual whose "topological" character — their inner life, expressed above all through the eyes — he sought to capture. His portrait subjects appear capable of dialogue, achieved through simple compositions paired with a complex, nuanced color palette, rendered in a classical style free of showy contrast or deformation. His work is held in museum, gallery, and exhibition collections, and is recognized by admirers of classical Russian painting across Russia, Western and Central Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Artists like Platonov exemplify a broader pattern in Soviet art: painters trained in the Baltic republics who carried that region's chromatic sensibility into provincial Russian centers far from Moscow and Leningrad, giving cities like Ufa a richer, more independent artistic culture than they might otherwise have had. View Full Image
We extend an invitation to place bids in August's exclusive auctions. We deeply appreciate everyone who participated and placed bids in the last auctions. The current high bids for each painting are all just $1,0000! The next bids are $1,250, 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, Friday, September 4th. Follow all the bidding updates on the Gallery's website and view the works in person by appointment! 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. Tel: 801-755-7072 Good Luck! Stephen Justesen, Gallery Director |
"McCarthey Gallery's Featured Ukrainian Artist's- Coming!
' Popov, Igor Alexandrovich
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Popov, Igor Alexandrovich Igor Alexandrovich Popov (1927–1999) Igor Popov was born in 1927 in Kharkov, Ukraine. He began his artistic education at the Moscow Intermediate Art School (1939–1945), then went on to study at the Surikov Moscow State Art Institute from 1945 to 1951, training under S. Gerasimov and V. Pochitalov. His cohort there was notably strong, including fellow students such as V. Popkov, V. Stozharov, V. Ivanov, I. Shevandronova, and N. Andronov, several of whom went on to become significant figures in Soviet art themselves. Popov settled in Moscow, becoming active there from 1954, when he joined the Moscow branch of the Union of Artists of the USSR. He built his reputation primarily as a painter of cityscapes, becoming known as an outstanding master of the genre — his numerous depictions of Moscow were noted for their finesse and lyricism. Beyond cityscapes, he also worked in genre painting, portraiture, still lifes, and landscapes; a trip to Russia's North proved particularly inspiring, leading to a series of landscape works. He was a regular participant in Moscow, republican, and All-Union exhibitions, including the major "Soviet Russia" exhibition in Moscow in 1960, and he also exhibited abroad alongside other Russian artists. In 1970, he received the Silver Medal from the USSR Academy of Arts for his portrait series "Fishermen of Galich." In the mid-1970s, he served as head of the Moscow Artists' Union, and in 1977 he was awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia. In 1985, he contributed to wall paintings for the Reception House. Over his career, Popov held four solo exhibitions, including a notable one-man show in Moscow in 1989. His work is held in more than 20 museums across Russia, including the State Tretyakov Gallery and the State Russian Museum, as well as in the Kiev Museum of Russian Art and other major regional museums. His paintings are also present in private collections both in Russia and abroad, and have been regularly acquired by collectors in the USA, Great Britain, France, and Germany, among other countries. Igor Popov died in Moscow in 1999.
Stasevich, Ivan Nikiforovich
Stasevich, Ivan Nikiforovich (1929- 1998)Honored Artist of Belarus 1985 Ivan N. Stasevich, painter and honored artist of Byelorussia, was born on January 9, 1929 in the village of Medvednya, in Starodorozhensky district of Minsk region into a peasant family. During the war years, he became a fighter in the third brigade. He survived the blockade with the partisans. When Belarus was liberated, at the age of 15, he made enrolled in the motor-road unit of the 1st Belarusian Front. And during all the war years he drew war sheets, posters, road signs, the last of which is "To the Reichstag - 250 meters." After the end of the war, in he enrolled in the Minsk Art College, graduating in 1952. He then left for Moscow and began his studies at the famed Suirikov Institute, graduating in 1958. His professors were noted artists G. M. Izergina, A. P. Mozalev, V. K. Tsvirko, and D. K. Mochalsky. His diploma work "In the Belarusian Swamps", which depicts the exit of partisans from the blockade, was exhibited at the All-Union art exhibition and was positively noted by critics. The subjects of fighting against Nazi remained very important for the artist in the subsequent years. There were such pictures as Life Everlasting, Oath (1965-1967), May (1945), and Happy Meeting (1969-1970). The subjects of the artist's pictures also reflected the optimistic attitudes of the post-war years, the years of construction work. In the 1960s, the artist worked at the construction site of Bratsk Hydropower Station where he painted portraits of wood-cutters, industrial landscapes and genre compositions, such as Angara, Angara (1960) and Winners of Padun Rapids (1961). When he returned to Belarusia, the artist's creative work became closely connected with teaching. For many years, Stasevich worked in Minsk Institute of Theater and Art. An Associate Professor, and then a Professor of the Institute, he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of Belarus 1985. He was always attracted by people close to him, powerful characters, ebullient life energy. In landscape painting he embodied the views of the south and north of Belarus. Throughout his life, he visited almost the entire Soviet Union, he was also in Italy, France and Portugal. I.N. Stasevich was an active participant of all Russia's and all Belarusian exhibitions. Before the independence of Belarus from Russia, he was a member of the USSR Union of Artists. I. N. Stasevich's works are included in many public and private collections (Belarus, Russia, Algeria, England, Austria, Belgium, Germany, India, Italy, Canada and others); including the National art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, the Belarusian Union of artists, the Museum of modern fine arts in Minsk, Vitebsk Museum of M. Shmarova, the Belarusian Museum of the great Patriotic war, Svetlogorsk and Gomel Museums, the Museum P. Masherov, Vitebsk, and the Ministry of culture of Russia. including in the homeland of the artist in the Starodorozhsky District Historical and Ethnographic Museum there are over 70 of his works. 22 works of painting and graphics by the master are included in the collection of the National Art Museum I. N. Stasevich passed away on on September 11, 1998 at the age off 66.
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Russian & Soviet Impressionism
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New Salt Lake City Gallery & WharehouseGood News! We are now fully settled into our new Gallery and Warehouse in downtown Salt Lake City and are ready to show you some great Russian Impressionist art. The majority of the works in the new Gallery have never been exhibited before!
Mailing Address: Gallery ART VAULT 265 E 100 S, Downtown SLC, UT 84111 Hours: By appointment or 6- 9 pm for Gallery Stroll (the third Friday of every month) |
Volkova is a solid, representative figure of the mid-century Ukrainian Soviet school — not a radical innovator, but a technically accomplished, officially recognized painter whose landscapes capture the specific light and terrain of the Dnieper region where she spent most of her career. A work like "Ukrainian Marsh" is valued today less for grand historical significance than as an honest, well-crafted document of place and of a particular mid-century Soviet-Ukrainian painterly sensibility — the kind of picture that rewards close attention to paint handling more than it carries overt political or symbolic weight.
Anatoly Ivanovich Platonov (1930–2001)
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.
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Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery
444 Main Street Park City, Utah 84060 Tel: 435-658-1691 Email: info@mccartheygallery.net |
