Opening reception Friday, February 27, 6-8pm

The Ukrainian Institute of America will open an exhibition of paintings 'Ukrainian Art through American Eyes' on February 27, 2004 from the collections of Grace Kennan Warnecke and former US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual.

The exhibit features artwork of 22 painters, ranging by style from realistic, impressionistic to abstract and naïve. Among others, the exhibit features art of such well-known Ukrainian artists as Tatyana Yablonska (Yablonskaya) and Mikola Hlushchenko.

Paintings from both of the collections were acquired in Kyiv between 1998 and 2003. While it is easy to get disoriented among about the dozens of art galleries and auctions that now operate in Kyiv, "I always followed my own taste and judgment in making the acquisitions," says Ms. Warnecke. "I have never bought a painting with the intention of selling it."

The idea for the present exhibition came from Ms. Warnecke. "One day I realized that I was building a collection" she recalls, "after that the idea of having a show of Ukrainian Art in the USA for American viewer was growing and becoming even more important." When the collector approached the Ukrainian Institute with the proposition to organize this show, the Institute immediately agreed to host the exhibit.

The Ukrainian Institute of America Inc. is a nonprofit organization whose primary mission is to showcase and support Ukrainian culture with an emphasis on visual arts and music. The Institute was founded more than fifty years ago by William Dzus, a prominent Ukrainian inventor, industrialist and philanthropist.

"We are thrilled by the opportunity to present this exhibit to general public", says Walter Hoydysh, the Director of Programs at the Ukrainian Institute as well as the curator of the exhibit. "It is a wonderful opportunity to showcase Ukrainian paintings that were chosen by American collectors."

The work on exhibit include social realism 'Night shift at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant', 1973 painting by Mamsikov, depicting the glory of construction of the plant that opened in September, 1977 and brought to the world the worst lesson on nuclear reactor safety. We also see the wonderfully colored, compositionally elegant impressionistic still life and landscape paintings by Mikola Hlushchenko, a legend of Ukrainian art, who was a part of Western Art World exhibiting in Berlin in 1924, in Paris in 1925 and then becoming a chief designer of the USSR exhibits at international expos. He returned to Moscow in 1936 and then settled in Kyiv in 1944, where he led a creative life. There is a touch of authenticity of Ukrainian spirit in naïve paintings of Anastasia Rak, who after surviving great oppressions of Stalin's Famine of 1932-33 and Nazi labor camps of World War II was able to return to her native village, where she brings optimism to everyday life with joyous and bright villagescape reverse paintings on glass. But above all the exhibit presents a great academic level of art. Most of the artists are graduates of Kyiv Academy of Art, Odessa Grekov College of Art, or Kharkiv Institute of Art and are members of Ukraine's Union of Artists.

A total of 37 works will be on view in Ukrainian Institute from February 27 through April 25, 2004. The show will open with a reception on Friday, the 27th from 6 to 9 PM. A fully illustrated catalogue of the exhibit as well as full preview on our website.

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