Beyond Canvas and Into Another Lifetime
Photography: Timothy Thimmes
Visitors to the Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery will find a unique collection of Russian artworks, created during Russia’s communist regime. Artists often used boards, potato sacks, or other makeshift materials because genuine canvases were scarce and expensive. Sometimes sketches, notes, or stamps on the back sides of the works add a layer of history to these soulful oil paintings. Gallery Director Allison Williamson points out customs’ stamps on artwork backs, traces of their journey from the former U.S.S.R. to the Park City gallery—one of the few exclusively Russian art galleries in the country.
“This is a slice of history that is never going to be painted again, because the Soviet Union no longer exists,” says Associate Director Christine Gailey. Although the paintings’ histories engage viewers, it is also the deeply rich colors, tangible brushstrokes and humanity of the featured subjects that invite reflection.
Russian artists developed and refined their own styles of realism and impressionism under communist rule when they were isolated from the rest of the world. French Impressionism was their last glimpse at the art world before the Iron Curtain slammed shut in 1917. Over the next six decades, Russian artists developed a genre of their own, known as “Russian Impressionism” or “Soviet Realism.”
Despite common belief, art did not fade away in Russia under communist leadership. The government did support the arts?and not just painters. The Bolshoi Ballet, writer Leo Tolstoy and musician Peter Tchaikovsky all hailed from this period. Artists talented enough to be accepted into Russia’s rigorous five-year art schools, and then into the government’s Artists Union, became state employees and received a monthly stipend as well as commissioned work.
Russia’s art diverged into two styles during this period. By day, artists created state-commissioned works known as “propaganda art,” in which the government provided artists with supplies and directives to produce images that depicted a progressive and thriving Mother Russia. In the painting, “Collective Farmers,” healthy, robust, and colorfully dressed women march out of a field after a day’s work on a collective farm.
Russia’s industrial revolution is glorified in “Demidoff Factory,” in which a factory spews smoke and fire, and the canvas is saturated in darkness. “The artist is able to depict something so beautifully that is not usually considered beautiful ,beautiful,” explains Williamson.
The other style of art that evolved is in the paintings these artists created on their own time, often at night, portraying familiar subjects like family members or local villagers. “It is such pure art because they painted what they loved, not just what would sell,” says Gailey. “It is this purity that startles us with its beauty.”
Discovering Hidden Treasures
“Russian Impressionist pieces differ from the other art I have collected,” explains gallery patron Susan Tillman. “It has an immediate impact on you. You empathize immediately with the subject of the painting because of the way the artist has been able to combine the color, texture and subjects, and perhaps most importantly, the experience of the subjects—It’s like you are going back years and suddenly find yourself standing next to this person who is working for pennies a day.”
Collectors refer to Russian paintings created between the 1930s and 1980s as “hidden treasures,” because they were hidden away from the rest of the world in painters’ homes and studios—sometimes lifetimes’ worth of work. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that Westerners discovered Russia’s Impressionist art. Jim Dabakis, one of the gallery’s four owners, first discovered Russian artwork when he lived in St. Petersburg in the early 1980s. He was one of the first to bring Russian art to the United States. Dabakis shared his passion with friend Thomas McCarthey, who also started collecting Russian art. “I find the historical aspect of the artwork fascinating, plus it is terrific art,” says McCarthey, who co-owns the gallery and instigated opening it in Park City four years ago.
The spacious, two-story gallery exhibits some 200 oil paintings, representing more than 100 Soviet period artists and a few contemporary ones. Some working-class Russians depicted in these paintings glance out at viewers, while others are too caught up in their work to notice as they hang laundry, study, bake, harvest crops, or eat a simple meal. In “From the Night Shift,” a woman ties on her apron before starting work. You see her strength in her full and muscular body and sense the demands of her life. Yet she does not see you. She is with her thoughts, far away.
Subjects in a French Impressionist painting would more likely be elegantly dressed ladies holding parasols as they walk through a park or garden. In Russian Impressionism, it’s the working class that’s featured. Although subject matter and moods differ, Russians were influenced by a variety of French Impressionism characteristics such as a sense of freedom, spontaneity, vibrant emotions, heavy brushstrokes, pleine aire style (natural light), and bold color.
Most of the painted Russian subjects, young and old, appear contemplative—as though they have a lifetime of thoughts on their minds. Striking both the heart and curiosity of the viewer, the hidden stories behind their gazes make us wonder about their lives and their fates. Although the subjects are simple enough, there is a complexity of emotions in each that can be felt more than described. This is the realism of Russian art. It is a sense that’s unmistakable in the works of Grigoriv Chainikov, a contemporary Russian artist who studied under master artists and brothers, Alexie and Sergei Tkachev.
Although Chainikov’s talent was not developed under the communist supremacy, he captures the same old-style realism that his predecessors did, much of it in Russia’s countryside. His subjects, usually rural folks, may reappear in paintings such as “Uncle Lesha,” who in one painting takes a break from his labors for lunch; and in another, collects mushrooms. All of Chainikov’s subjects evoke a depth of feeling, even children, whose eyes seem to portray hardships beyond their years. The McCarthey Gallery is the only one in the country to carry Chainikov’s work.
Russian Art In Demand
Russian art is a hot item in the art world right now, and artists are experiencing unprecedented success with art publishers, galleries, auction houses and even museums. Last winter, the Smithsonian featured a large exhibit on Russian Impressionism and Realism. Sotheby’s posted the highest total sale ever for a collection of Russian art this past spring, about the same time an entire museum devoted to Russian art opened in Minneapolis.
“These paintings strike people because they are dealing with major social issues—It’s not just decorative art, but rather art that deals with human issues and the human condition,” explains Dr. Vern Swanson, director of Utah’s Springville Museum, which has its own nationally renowned collection of Russian art. “Americans are responding to the strength in subject as well as the execution of the artwork—it is double-fisted painting.” Swanson points out the broad brushstrokes and thick and rich pigmentation as symbols of the powerful feelings and grit of Russian artists.
Park City’s Main Street is bustling with shoppers. But when people enter the McCarthey Gallery, they slow down. Standing still, they journey into the lives of working-class Russians. The art is vicarious. Viewers seek to understand and feel a subject’s emotion. In the process, they connect with another life in another time and thousands of miles away. Part of the mesmerizing effect of this art is the ability it has to make us reflect deeply, in a country where there is so little time to do so.
Freelancer Peta Owens-Liston wishes she could express herself as beautifully with her words as these painters do with the strokes of their paintbrushes. She also wishes there was a Santa Claus—top of her Christmas list would be one of these paintings.
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