Poetic Imagination Igor Galanin
Igor G alanin, Poetic Imagination
The Barn @ Downing Yudain LLC
November 19, 2025 - January 16, 2026
Illustrated on cover: Circus IX (Seal)
Acrylic on canvas: 58 x 36 inches
Igor Galanin was born in Moscow, Russia in 1937 at the height of Stalin’s reign of terror. His father was from Russian nobility where his family can be traced back to the 13th century, as recorded in the Velvet Books. His mother was Jewish. Both sides of his lineage had a profound effect on his life.
Initially a ceramicist, he changed his love for clay to illustration, where he illustrated more than 30 children’s books and designing sets for the Moscow Ballet Theatre. The books continue to be published and France today. By the late 1960’s, early 1970’s he gained fame and prominence as a children’s book illustrator, winning multiple commissions and awards. At the time, Galanin lived a full life with his wife and two small children in Moscow in a nice apartment as well as a summer house. However, life in Soviet Russia could be dificult. One day in the early 1970’s, he was at his publishers and noticed a person looking for work was being menaced and harassed. He realized that this could soon be him. He was able, due to his Jewish heritage, to secure papers out of the country.
Rather than go the traditional route to Israel, where he was concerned he would not be able show and sell his art, he secured papers to Italy in hopes to travel further to the United States.
It was in Rome while waiting for his US documents, he had his first show at Paesi Nuovi. The gallery had showed Guiseppe Capogrossi, Mirko Basaldella and Gino Severini among others.
To Igor’s great fortune his show completely sold out, mostly to Americans. Once his travel documents for him,his wife and 7-year-old twins were secured, he was able to travel to the United States.
During this time, Pastor George Pera, the adored Senior Pastor and Head of Staff at First Presbyterian Church in Greenwich helped the family with their emigration to the United States. Pera had several works in his home, including a portrait of the twins. Their relationship must have been very close.
Shortly after his arrival, some of the American collectors, who had purchased his works in Rome, arranged a show at the Red Barn on Fisher’s Island, New York. This show, like the last, proved to be an enormous success. Soon there were shows in Boston, including an exhibition at the Rose Art Museum in 1975. In 1976, the famed New York contemporary dealer, Andre Emmerich had a show, Russian Émigré Artists, in December of 1975 thru January of 1976. Emmerich at this time was a very known dealer working with artists such as Hans Hofmann, Helen Frankenthaler, Ann Truitt and Anthony Caro, among others.
The show was reviewed by John Russell in the New York Times and included works by Leonid Lerman, Grisha Bruskin, Alexander Kosolapov, Mikhail Roginsky, and George Tsypin, Oskar Rabin among others. This review gave Galanin the recognition he needed and very shortly Igor was picked up by Aberbach Gallery.
Aberbach was opened in 1973 and Galanin showed with them till the late 1980’s. Artnews reviewed a show in 1976 and John Russell reviewed one in 1978. In 1989, Theodore Wolff, the award-winning critic for the Christian Science Monitor included Igor Galanin in The Many Masks of Modern Art, pairing him with the artist John Marin. Other artists included in the book were Georgia O’Keeffe, Henri Matisse, Andrew Wyeth, Jackson Pollock and Richard Diebenkorn to name a few.
Here is John Russell’s review of Galanin’s show at Aberbach in 1978:
Igor Galanin (Aberbach Gallery, 988 Madison Avenue at 77th Street). Among the Russian painters and sculptors who have arrived here in recent years, Igor Galanin shows a particularly high degree of adaptation. This is in part because he stays so firmly in dreamland. The poetic imagination is his specialty, and in his case it is an imagination that never runs- red hot and could at times he reproached with blandness. He deals, with one idea at a time, he allows his figures plenty of space in which to breathe, the light is everywhere cool and even, and his notions of nature and architecture are entirely consoling.
He has an ancient national heritage that makes itself felt: pose and drapery than of iconpainting. Some of his inventions the sea lion that stands upright and balances a bouquet of blue flowers on its nose, for instance—could be the work of an unsentimental Chagall. So, equally, could his well-fleshed Adam as he bestrides the Garden of Eden with a hippopotamus for companion. But he never plucks at our sleeves, as Chagall does. Through April 12.
Igor Galanin is an artist of his time and place. While the works are lyrical and often joyous, there is sense of history which he carries in his paintings. Whether it is miniature massive, stone, stoic Russian structure in the far distance encircled by a rainbow in Dessert or the formal pool with the three figures is red in Night II-Tiger, the works capture a past moment in Russia. However, he also embraces his new home, in Squirrel, where the squirrel is flying through the air atop a meeting house and church in a seemingly New England village as a horse grazes gently on the grass.
No artist matures in a vacuum and Galanin had may influences but consistently had his own voice. Elie Nadelman can be seen in his sculptures but also in the painting, Horse and Rider.
Igor had an impressive career showing at galleries throughout his life and developed a wide following and an impressive list of collectors. While he continued to show publicly, he was able to sell directly out of his studio to his collector base. In his biography in the back of this catalogue, you will find his impressive exhibition history.
We are delighted to be entrusted to mount this small but enveloping retrospective of Igor Galanin’s work. It is an honor to show the work of such a talented draftsman, painter and sculptor. It is our hope that this exhibition expands his scope and allows a new group of collectors to get know his work.
Lily Downing and David Yudain November 2025
Night II – Tiger
2012
Bronze: 14 x 10 x 33 inches
Elephant, 2006
Bronze: 31 x 25 x 14 inches
Shaker House
on canvas: 11 x 14 inches
with Berries, 2010
Peaches
on canvas: 20 x 22 inches
Igor Galanin (1937 - 2024)
Exhibitions:
The Barn@Downing Yudain, Stamford, Connecticut. November 19, 2025 – January 16, 2026
Harbor Square Gallery | Rockland, ME | 2004–Present
Napua Gallery, Waldorf Astoria | Maui, HI | 2017–Present
Canyon Road Contemporary Art | Santa Fe, NM | 2018–2020
The Christina Gallery | Martha’s Vineyard, MA | 2014–2020
The Jewel Spiegel Gallery | Englewood, NJ | 2013–2019
Ann Jacob Gallery | Highlands, NC | 2011–2016
Amanti Art Gallery | Madison, WI | 2010–2011
JRS Fine Art | Providence, RI | 1986–2016
Gallery 444 | San Francisco, CA | 2000–2007
Harmon Meek Gallery | Naples, FL | 1995–2004
David Findlay Galleries | New York, NY | 1987–1996
Devin Galleries | New Hope, PA | 1993–1995
Brevard Art Museum | Melbourne, FL | 1989
Portals Ltd. | Chicago, IL | 1987–1988
Kieff Galerie d’Art | Montreal, Canada | 1987
Sloane Gallery of Art | Denver, CO | 1986, 1989
Kauffman Galleries | Houston, TX | 1982, 1983, 1984
Aberbach Fine Art | New York, NY | 1978–1986
Pucker Gallery | Boston, MA | 1975, 1976, 1987, 1997, 1990, 2000
London Gallery | Montreal, Canada | 1977
Andre Emmerich | New York, NY | 1976
Rose Art Museum | Boston, MA | 1975
Young Artists ’75 Exhibition | New York, NY | 1975
Village Art Gallery | Croton-on-Hudson, NY | 1974, 1977
Fishers Island Gallery | Fishers Island, NY | 1973–74
Paesi Nuovi Gallery | Rome, Italy | 1972
Museum Collections:
Art Museum University of Toronto | Toronto, Canada
An American Art Collection, Philharmonic Center for Arts | Naples, FL
Brevard Art Museum | Melbourne, FL
Rose Art Museum | Boston, MA
Mead Art Museum at Amherst College | Amherst, MA
Museum of Contemporary Art | La Jolla, CA
Zimerli Art Museum | New Brunswick, NJ
Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art | Loretto, PA
Private and Public Collections:
Roy Scheider
Glenn Close
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
Whoopi Goldberg
Mason Phelps
Natalia Makarove
Rudolf Nureyev
Jim Henson
Untied Technologies Corporation
The Cincinnatian Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio
The Doubletree Hotels in New Orleans
Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha Nebraska
Publications:
Art News | December 1974
The Harvard Crimson | March 1975
The New York Times | September 9, 1979
The National Jewish Monthly | June 1980
House and Garden | December 1983
The Yale Literary Magazine | 1982, 1985
Vanity Fair | September 1988
The Christian Science Monitor | June 1982; December 1984; May 1986
The Boston Connoisseur | 1986
The Many Masks of Modern Art | Theodore Wolfe 1989
Art & Auction | February 1988
Florida Today | March 1996
Naples Daily News | February 1996
Rocky Mount News | Denver, CO| 1986, 1989
Financial Times | London, UK | October 2000
Penthouse Magazine | 1991–1993
Vision Magazine | China | November 2015
Guideposts/Angels on Earth | November 2016
Awards
Caldecott Award For Children’s Book Illustration (Nominated) | for Marko the Rich
and Vasily the Unlucky | Thomas P. Whitney
The Art Directors Club 1991 Merit Award | 70th Annual Exhibition
Graphis Magazine Design Award | Penthouse Magazine | 1994
www.art357.com
info@art357.com