Fine Art Shippers has supported the book launch of “Russian Icons from the Mid-17th to Early 20th Centuries: The Collection of Oleg Kushnirskiy” hosted by the Mikhail Abramov Museum of Russian Icon in Moscow.
Attendees included members of the art community, including art historians, collectors, museum workers, and Oleg Kushnirskiy’s friends. He traveled to Moscow from the United States with his son and the collection’s director Ilya Kushnirskiy.
During the event, the director of the Museum of Russian Icon Nikolay Zadorozhny thanked Oleg Kushnirskiy and his family for their hard work putting together the collection. He also pointed out the importance of the book in introducing many lesser-known monuments of Russian icon painting to the art community.
Russian icon expert and collector Sergey Khodorkovskiy spoke about the uniqueness of Russian icons in art history and the effort Oleg put into putting together his outstanding collection.
Russian-Israeli cultural sociologist Dr. Alek Epstein, who wrote an article featured in the catalog, could not attend. However, he sent a letter co-written with researcher Dmitry Sanoyan, which the latter read to the guests. They mentioned the role of Oleg Kushnirskiy’s and other such collections as a cultural bridge between Russia and the West, not only today but in the future.
Anna Ivannikova, the author of the catalog and one of the three featured articles, sent a letter addressed to the event attendees in which she mentioned that when she first met Oleg Kushnirskiy in 2016 and wrote texts for the collection’s website, she could not have imagined that it would result in a comprehensive print book – the outcome of thirty decades of his collecting.
The translator of the book, Sergei Brun from the Museums of the Moscow Kremlin, spoke of Oleg’s painstaking work in collecting the magnificent collection, despite being outside Russia.
Art historian and member of the Russian Academy of Arts Alexei Lidov also acknowledged the cultural significance of Oleg Kushnirskiy’s collection and stressed the essential role of private collectors in preserving Russian icons.
We wish Oleg Kushnirskiy continued success in expanding his collection and his efforts to make Russian religious art accessible to wider audiences. We hope that American and international audiences will soon have a chance to see his icons with their own eyes.