Welcome to The McCarthey Gallery

The Thomas Kearns McCarthey Gallery is one of the foremost dealers in the United States dealing with Russian Impressionistic art.  The Gallery maintains an extensive inventory of collectible works by Russia's most respected artists during the period of 1930 to 1980.  The Gallery carefully selects paintings that are historically significant, original in composition, interesting in form and beautiful in their depiction of the human spirit.  We have been working in Russia for many years and have developed close personal relationships with many of the artists and their families.  Together with our associated gallery in Russia, Dacha Art, and our Russian partners, we maintain extremely close ties with the arts community in Russia and the former Soviet republics.  In addition to our Russian specialization, the TKM Gallery is proud to work with talented artists from other countries who have the spirit of the Russian art.

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May Silent Auction 

Akinshin, Mikhail Vasilievich, "Lilacs"
23½'' x 26½'', Oil on Board
Estimated Value, $4,000 to $5,000, Current Bid $500, P. Sullivan

There may be no better way to start a collection of Russian Art than to follow our monthly no reserve no minimum auctions. Every month we select a great painting and let you, our friends, go for it. Sometimes the painting sells above the estimated price, but often times it goes far below. This is a fun way to keep up with what is new at the gallery, to put a little excitement in your life, and at the same time add to your Russian art collection!

Translated from the original Russian

Mikhail Vasilievich Akinshin was born on February 18, 1927 in the village Lomovo, Kursk Region into a peasant's family. In 1951 M.V. Akinshin finished the Tashkent Art School. For a year he taught drawing at school. In 1953 he moved to the town of Zaporozhye and since this time has worked as a professional artist.

The artist travels often and has visited many places of our country. Everywhere, he tries to see and reproduce characteristic features of the terrain and its coloring. At the same time, M.V. Akinshin emphasizes skillfully his creative projects and in doing so retains peculiarities of his pictorial vision. The artist is especially carried away with diversity of our life, with fast rhythms and dynamics of contemporaneous. Probably, because of this, the local landscape became the main genre of his creative work.

Among landscapes created by M.V. Akinshin from 1968 to 1970, it is necessary to mention the picture titled "A Northern Little Town - Velikiy Ustyug". Here the artist's beloved composition device is used -- high horizon. It gave the artist the opportunity to show the place from the bird's eye view. The attention is attracted to the originality of the old town.

However, the artist does not consistently repeat this skillfully found method. For example, in the other landscape "Evening", the same place is represented in a different way. Here the view is from below with sharp color contrasts of bright red and orange buildings against the blue sky background. The artist shows a close-up of several buildings in major optimistic combinations with the Old Russian architecture.

He gives much attention to the work on studies during yearly trips over towns of our country. His paintings are not simply enlarged studies, not merely a mechanical transfer of a motif but laborious work on assertions of his views, image bearing executions of reality filled with personal feelings, emotional experiences and thoughts.

The landscape "Summer" which is in Zaporozhye Art Museum should also be attributed to the best of his works. Having reached the creative maturity, Mikhail Vasilievich Akinshin peers into life fixedly and represents it more truthfully and deeply.

Russian & Soviet Impressionism
Russia's Rich Cultural Heritage

Russia's rich cultural heritage represents the best of human creativity. Its literature, music, visual and performing arts and architecture are among the most profound, compelling and beautiful expressions of the human spirit.

Much of this rich heritage is well known in the United States, such as the writing of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, the music of Peter Tchaikovsky, Serge Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, the painting of Ilya Repin and Vassily Kadinsky, the architecture of the Kremlin and State Hermitage Museum and the dance of the Bolshoi Ballet.

Less well known in this tradition of creativity is the painting of the Russian Impressionist period, lasting from approximately 1930 to 1980. Russian Impressionism made an important contribution to the cultural heritage of Russia, but until recently, little has been known of its beauty and quality and its leading artists because of Soviet isolationism. During this period much of the cultural life in the Communist Soviet Union was denied Western exposure. The demise of Communism, the lifting of the Iron Curtain and the movement towards freedom and democracy of the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States has allowed the world the opportunity to experience a unique and important historical past through the art work.

It is now being collected and recognized by art historians, museum directors, curators and collectors as some of the best art produced in the twentieth century. 

"Soviet Impressionism"- Vern G. Swanson

From a unique set of circumstances that would be impossible to duplicate, Soviet Art from 1930 to 1980 was the 20th century's major realist school of painting. It powerfully expresses itself with a simple clarity of pictorial language, consummate adeptness and truthful portrayal of life. The Soviet artist acted as a willing collaborator with and portrayer of the aspirations of society. This contrasted with Western models where artists were typically alienated from their community. Acceptance will come, using the Soviet phrase, because it is "historically inevitable". It is already to a certain extent here with the pictures from the period increasingly passing through the sale rooms of Europe and North America. This book should give wider understanding of this underrated but artistically exciting movement in Soviet art.

Read more about Russian Impressionism...