Nicolai Fechin Exhibit

What can I say about the Nicolai Fechin exhibit now on view at the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis?

It is proof that if you know what you're doing with paint, you can do just about whatever it is you want!

This man was a giant in the painting world. The power of the work - the wall power - and just the gripping excellence of the pieces make you understand why people in power might be a little frightened by such a person just saying whatever it is they might have in them to say!

Hence the repression.

I was not surprised to discover that his father, among other talents, was a fine iconographer. In that spirit, the paintings and drawings have that breath and spirit mixed in with the paint and medium and graphite that lends a living/breathing, luminescent quality to them that you don't see very often.

I was particularly taken by his portrait of his then teenage daughter, staring impishly out from the colorful canvas. Her fingers shown shifting upwards from where they must have been when he started of the painting. He reblocked the areas where her arm had been in dark black. When the docent told us that it was the last portrait he ever did of her, and that he told her brusquely that he didn't want to paint her anymore because she was no longer pretty, I quietly gasped. I could imagine a family fight ending with his giving up after brushing in the black right out of the tube.

This was the first time since I began painting that I ever got that connection with a painting like I used to always get when reading a novel. The echo of what was going on in the artists mind. I always loved that feeling. That connection of seeing and feeling what they could have. That something more that is always left behind in powerfully executed work.

This show is so inspiring. Both times I went I wanted to go right home and paint. I will be back again and again. It is a rare treat to see such (I'll say it again) inspiring work.

They are missing some pieces that were supposed to be sent from the Russian Federation due to the art embargo. I must confess that I didn't even know there had been an embargo for the past year. It is affecting many museum shows in the American Federation right now.

All this while Mr. Fechin is increasing in popularity around the world due to this traveling show. Hopefully it will be lifted soon so we can see more of this exceptional artist. If not, one might travel to other museums that feature this gifted persons work.