Grigory L. Chainikov

Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery

In recent years Chainikov has emerged as Russian Realism's newest and brightest find. His recent death at the age of 47 is a great loss to Russia, and to the international art world. Chainikov embraced Russian Realism and remained ever true to its spirit. As he explained, "My themes arise on their own, through insight and not from engaging in subtleties.." His landscapes are often filled with human forms. He painted the everyday: peasants, the field workers, the old, and the young. He painted only what matters, only what is real. In the pater years of his life, one could most often find the non-assuming Chainikov at The Academic Dacha, painting Russia's humblest fold, with the compassion and understanding of an artist who knows only how to paint the truth and the realism of life.