Ana Tzarev "Skazki: Russian Fairy Tale Ornaments and Ana Tzarev’s Russian Fairy Tale Paintings"
Ana Tzarev Gallery
This event has ended.
Fairy tales, or Skazki, as they are known in Russia, have been an important part of Slavic culture for generations, passed through word-of-mouth, literature and in Alexander Pushkin's famous verses. Influences from European and Asian folklore are evident in many of the Skazki and often the tales are stories of dualities. Good and evil, life and death, wealth and poverty, kindness and envy, innocence and corruption, mortality and immortality. The faraway Tsar appears often in the fairy tale theme, with his family members performing heroic feats in order to prove themselves worthy of inheritance. Such adventures of fairy princes and princesses regularly involved encounters with monsters of various forms in pursuit of the dream to live 'happily ever after'.
The artist Ana Tzarev has a deep affinity for Russia; her Slavic heritage was the initial inspiration for the Russian Fairy Tale paintings. She began the research in her childhood, immersing herself in the history, literature and arts of the country. The Russian Fairy Tale concept came to life in 2009 when she began work on the series, which by 2010 resulted in a spectacular array of over 100 paintings, capturing the characters, scenes and sentiment of the stories that have been cherished by Russians for centuries. This exhibition is a preview, featuring eight canvases from that body of work.
The rare Russian fairy tales ornaments on display in this exhibition are from the private collection of Kim Balaschak, an American woman who lived in Russia from 1995 through 2008. When the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation gave permission to Ms. Balaschak to take her collection out of Russia to the United States, it was done so with the hope that it would be shared with Americans and Russians living in the states. This exhibition is the first showing of the Fairy tale ornaments in America and they are accompanied by a selection of Ms. Balaschak’s collection of vintage Russian fairy tale postcards.
[Image: Ana Tzarev "Firebird (Detail)" (2009) oil on linen 78.25 x 154.5 in.]
Media
Schedule
from December 16, 2010 to February 05, 2011