Arkhip Kuindzhi
This scene shows a sunset over the river Dnipro, which originates west of Russia and runs south into the Black Sea. Kuindzhi was born along the coast in Mariupol when the Ukrainian city was part of the Russian Empire. The minimalist composition and dramatic light, color, and clouds exemplify the artist’s style. Earlier in his career, in the 1870s, the artist was associated with the Peredvizhniki (sometimes translated as the Wanderers), a pioneering independent exhibition group. In the 1890s, he taught landscape painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Dismissed for supporting student protestors, he ultimately founded his own artists’ society. Today, Kuindzhi is celebrated in both Ukraine and Russia.
In March, the Kuindzhi Art Museum in Mariupol was destroyed in a Russian airstrike. The museum opened in 2010 and had in its collection more than 600 paintings by 20th-century artists. Among them was a sketch for Red Sunset that reportedly had been removed from the premises prior to the bombing. Their current location is unknown. Among the works believed to have been destroyed in the airstrike were paintings by Kuindzhi’s peer Ivan Aivazovsky, the Russian Romantic painter known for his striking seascapes, as well as pieces by contemporary Ukrainian artists. Today, Mariupol is a devastated city in which thousands have died and around 90 percent of residential buildings have been destroyed or damaged in the Russian invasion.
P.S. Let's celebrate Ukrainian people and culture by learning more about Ukrainian artists! Meet Taras Shevchenko!