The Artists

Yuri Kugach, "Full Moon," 2007, 19 1/2in x 27 1/4in, oil on board.*
A Russian Realism show is being planned for Saturday and Sunday, October 25th and 26th, 12 to 4pm at the James Yarosh Associates Fine Art Gallery. Over 100 paintings and new works arriving to the U.S., include Soviet Era works and current realism painters, will be featured as part of a one weekend-only trunk show and exhibition event. Special to this show will be our guest and show co-host, Russian art historian John Wurdeman; artists from Russia are also scheduled to attend, including Ivan Kugach of the the Kugach family of artists (son of Mikhail and grandson of Yuri and Olga Svetchenaya), Ilya Yatsenko, and Jonathan Wurdeman. Works by this group of painters were also part of the Blairsden Mansion Atrium Exhibit at Mansion in May 2014 and are currently available as part of James Yarosh Associates' permanent offerings.

THE WURDEMAN FAMILY VIDEO LINK
KUGACH FAMILY WITH VIDEO
IVAN KUGACH
ILYA YATSENKO

*Yuri Kugach (1917-2013)"Full Moon" was painted by Yuri in 2007, then 90-years-old. It is a moonscape above the water. Mikhail shared that his father, considered to be one of the most important artists in Russia, had completed a series of paintings that just blew away his peers and followers, who perhaps thought Yuri's advanced age had caused him to lose his artistic luster. The moonscape paintings, like the epic story paintings of the artist's past, now offer the night impression of the artist, painting in the darkness of night. Profoundly, we are asked to imagine the artist with his palette, black with night, as is his canvas, working alone, at the end of his life, staring at the heavens and working by the dim moonlight's reflection, poised next to the rippling, endless sea with just a small fire still burning in the distance, otherwise enveloped in the night's darkness and the heavens above. In this way, the work offers not only a subtle, luminous moonscape, but also a metaphor serving as the artist's self-portrait facing mortality.