Art from collection of Alexis Gritchenko Foundation on view at UIA (10/24/04)

Art from collection of Alexis Gritchenko Foundation on view at UIA

NEW YORK - A commemorative exhibition titled "Alexis Gritchenko (1883-1977), Travels in Europe: From Cubism to Expressionism," is currently on view at the Ukrainian Institute of America.

The exhibition, which draws on the collection of the artist's paintings that comprise the holdings of the New York-based Alexis Gritchenko Foundation, opened on October 22 and will be on view through November 14.

On exhibit are over 40 works, including oil paintings, watercolors and gouaches. A 15-page catalogue, featuring 63 works, has been published in conjunction with the exhbition.

After the close of the exhibition, the Alexis Gritchenko Foundation collection will be transferred to Ukraine, in accordance with the artist's wish that his work return to his homeland upon Ukraine's independence.

The exhibition is a joint presentation of the Ukrainian Institute of America and the Alexis Gritchenko Foundation. The institute is located at 2 E. 79th St.; gallery hours: Wednesday-Sunday, noon-6 p.m. For additional information call (212) 288-8660 or visit the UIA website, www.ukrainianinstitute.org.

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Oleksa Hryshchenko (Alexis Gritchenko) was born on April 2, 1883, in Krolevets in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine. After initial studies of biology at the universities of Kyiv and Moscow, he turned to art, going on to study at the Moscow Art School. Among his teachers were Serhiy Svitoslavsky in Kyiv and K. Yuon in Moscow. While in Moscow, he was involved in the modern art movement and developed close ties with two important art collectors: S. Shchukin and I. Morozov.

During a brief stay in Paris in 1911, where he met Alexander Archipenko, André Lothe and Henri LeFauconnier, he became interested in cubism. In 1913-1914 he was in Italy, where he was particularly drawn to early Renaissance art.

After the 1917 revolution, Hryshchenko taught at the State Art Studios in Moscow and was a member of the Commission for the Protection of Historic Monuments. He fled Russia in 1919 and settled in Istanbul, where he lived from 1919 to 1921.

Works from this period, which emanate from the artist's stay in Turkey and visits to Greece, mark the beginning of a distinctive and inspired period of watercolor painting. The exhibition of these works in leading galleries of Paris, gained Hryshchenko recognition in the art world of the 1920s.

While in Turkey, 66 of his watercolors were acquired by the American Byzantologist Thomas Wittemore (1871-1950) of Boston, known for the restoration of the mosaics at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

When Hryshchenko returned to Paris in 1921, 12 of his Constantinople paintings were included in the Salon d'Automne. His subsequent trips to Greece resulted in works that brought him into contact with leading art dealers and distinguished collectors, Leopold Zborowski and Dr. Albert C. Barnes. Among select exhibitions of his works was an exhibition at the Byzantine Museum in Athens in 1923.

During the 1920s, the golden age of the art dealer, Hryshchenko's works were exhibited in the galleries of leading Parisian art dealers and collectors with international connections, among them: Paul Guillaume, Ziegfried Bing, Katia Granoff and Eugène Druet, as well as at the Galerie de L'Elysée and in exhibitions at the Salon des Tuilleries and Salon d'Automne, of which he was a member from 1930. After Hryshchenko's exhibition at the Bing Gallery in 1926, Parisian art critic Louis Vauxcelles wrote that "the young Ukrainian colorist conquered Paris."

In 1927 Hryshchenko married Lilas Lavelaine de Maubeuge, settling in Cagnes in southern France.

Hryshchenko became known in the United States in 1923, when the prestigious Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pa., near Philadelphia, acquired 17 of his works. The acquisition was realized through Mr. Guillaume, who was also foreign secretary for the foundation. That same year Hryshchenko's work formed part of the Barnes Foundation exhibition of 75 paintings featuring the work of such artists as de Chirico, Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso held at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Hryshchenko's work was first exhibited in Ukraine in 1937 in Lviv, then under Polish rule, in an exhibition of the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists and in a one-man show.

After the war his work was exhibited in Paris in the galleries of André Weil (1950) and Bernheim Jeune (1957), and at the Galerie d'Art Moderne (1962). A retrospective exhibition of Hryshchenko's work was held at the Salon d'Automne in 1973.

Hryshchenko had several one-man shows in New York, including at the Ukrainian Art and Literary Club (1953), and a retrospective exhibition at the Ukrainian Institute of America (1958). The Ukrainian Museum of New York, which has over 21 works by the artist in its fine arts collection, held an exhibition of oil paintings and watercolors by the artist (along with an exhibition of graphic works by Alexander Archipenko from the museum's collection), as part of its "In Celebration of Private Collectors'" exhibition series in 1998. Hryshchenko's last exhibition in New York took place in 1967 at the Peter Deitsch Gallery.

An exhibition of the artist's work was held in Philadelphia at the Christina Czorpita Gallery (at La Salle College) in 1972.

In Canada Hryshchenko's work was exhibited at the Edmonton Art Gallery (1976) and at the Focus Gallery in Toronto (1977).

In 1963 the artist established the Alexis Gritchenko Foundation, to which he donated over 70 works. The collection was housed at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York. An exhibition of Hryshchenko's collected work was held at the institute on April 9-28, 1963, on the occasion of the creation of the foundation, with 72 works on display.

Hryshchenko's works are found in many museums, including Le Musée National d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Royal Museum, Copenhagen; Musée Royal, Brussels; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow; National Museum, Lviv; Barnes Gallery, Merion, Pa.; and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as well as in private collections, with more than 300 works in North American collections. Notable private collectors include V. Sechyshyn, Oslo (270 works); Ye. Sumyk, Neptune City, N.J., (75 works); and Ye. Dovhan, Montreal (28 works).

Among Hryshchenko's theoretical writings are: "O Sviaziakh Russkoi Zhivopisi s Vizantiei i Zapadom" (Russian Painting and Its Ties with Byzantium and the West, 1913); and "Russkaia Ikona kak Iskusstvo Zhivopisi" (The Russian Icon as Painting, 1917).

His memoirs include the following: "Deux Ans à Constantinople (Two Years in Constantinople, 1930, includes 40 reproductions of his watercolors; Ukainian edition, 1961, without reproductions); "L'Ukraine de Mes Jours Bleus" (The Ukraine of My Blue Days, 1957; Ukrainian edition, 1958); "Moyi Zustrichi i Rozmovy z Frantsuzkymy Mysttsiamy" (My Encounters and Conversations with French Artists, 1962; English edition, 1968); and "Roky Buri i Natysku" (Years of Storm and Stress, 1967).

Monographs of Hryshchenko's art works include: P. Kovzhun, "Hryshchenko-Gritchenko" (Lviv, 1934); Jean René, "Alexis Gritchenko: Sa vie, Son Oeuvre" (Alexis Gritchenko, His Life, His Work, Paris, 1948); and Raymond Charmet et al., "Alexis Gritchenko" (Paris, 1964).

Hryshchenko enjoyed a long and distinguished career spanning more than 60 years. The artist's travels deeply influenced and to a great degree affected the style of his work. Initially an enthusiast of cubist painting, with its characteristically geometric forms and initially limited color palette, he changed his style to a vibrant expressionism, in which reality or nature is transformed to communicate an inner vision.

His watercolor paintings convey the immediate expression of a visual experience, rendered in muted, at times bright, diaphanously transparent colors.

Hryshchenko died in Vence, France, on January 28, 1977.

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