Igor Galanin began as an artist in Soviet Russia by illustrating children's books and designing sets for the Moscow ballet theater. As a successful artist, book illustrator and theatrical designer in the former Soviet Union, Galanin enjoyed professional success and recognition-without freedom of expression. Yet he had an inner mechanism that understood what freedom was all about. Within his personal, painted kingdom, Galanin let freedom ring. If he wanted a chair to rest on water instead of a floor, he put it there. If he thought the fruit in a still life should go floating out of its bowl, away it went.
Igor Galanin began as an artist in Soviet Russia by illustrating children’s books and designing sets for the Moscow ballet theater. As a successful artist, book illustrator and theatrical designer in the former Soviet Union, Galanin enjoyed professional success and recognition-without freedom of expression. Yet he had an inner mechanism that understood what freedom was all about. Within his personal, painted kingdom, Galanin let freedom ring. If he wanted a chair to rest on water instead of a floor, he put it there. If he thought the fruit in a still life should go floating out of its bowl, away it went.
On the surface, Galanin’s paintings are purely a celebration of the sensual. In this carnival of earthly delights, women with delicate, aristocratic features and round, voluptuous bodies take center stage. Whether they are enjoying a park vista from the comfort of a bench, or flying through the air on the trapeze, Galanin’s big beautiful women remain serenely in control of their surroundings.
Expressing a wholly unique artistic, vision these technically masterful paintings contain lighthearted nods to mannerism, to Surrealism and to the dainty theatrical caprices of Jean-Antoine Watteau. Galanin’s jewel-box palette and dramatic use of dark backgrounds may bring to mind Russia’s decorative black-lacquer art objects, as well as religious icons.
Galanin was born in Moscow in 1937, where he continued to live until his desire for a career as an artist in the western tradition took him and his young family to Rome. It was there that Igor had his first solo exhibition in 1972. Seeking liberty for himself and his family, Galanin immigrated to the United States that same year.
Not long after his arrival in the States, Galanin was selected to participate in a Young Artist’s exhibit at Boston’s Rose Museum. This led to his first New York Group show at Andre Emmerich Gallery and then to a long association with Jean Aberbach (Aberbach Gallery) and Lindsay Findlay (David Findlay Gallery). He has also exhibited throughout the United States, and occasionally in Europe. His art is in leading private, corporate, museum and university collections in the United States, Europe, Japan, and South America.