• Some 70 masterworks on paper by leading Impressionists and Post-Impressionists
• Published to accompany an exhibition at the Royal Academy from 25 November 2023 to 10 March 2024

Best known for their superlative oils on canvas, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and numerous other Impressionists and Post-Impressionists also regularly used paper as a support for works in watercolour, gouache, pencil, tempera and that most elusive of media, pastel. Their practice transformed the status of these works from preparatory studies, to be left in the studio and not shown in public, to works of art in their own right.

With insightful texts by acknowledged experts in the field, this sumptuous book brings together some 70 masterworks on paper by leading Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. Their bold innovations challenged traditional attitudes, radically transformed the future direction of art and ultimately paved the way for later movements such as Abstract Expressionism.

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How does artistic life flourish during revolution and conflict? Ukraine in the early 1900s endured unimaginable political upheaval, yet this became a period of true renaissance in Ukrainian art, literature, theatre and cinema.

In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900–1930s presents the ground-breaking art produced in Ukraine in the early 20th century, focusing on the three key cultural centres of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa. Against a complicated socio-political backdrop of collapsing empires, World War I, the revolutions of 1917 with the ensuing Ukrainian War of Independence, and the eventual creation of Soviet Ukraine, several strands of distinctly Ukrainian art emerged.

While émigrés such as Sonia Delaunay and Alexander Archipenko found fame outside their homeland, the followers of Mykhailo Boichuk focused on Byzantine revivalism, and the artists of the Kultur Lige sought to promote the development of contemporary Yiddish culture. The first avant-garde exhibitions in Ukraine featured the radical art of Davyd Burliuk and Alexandra Exter, and the dynamic canvases of the Kyiv-based Cubo-Futurist Oleksandr Bohomazov. In Kharkiv, Vasyl Yermilov championed the industrial art of Constructivism, while Vadym Meller, Anatol Petrytskyi, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov and Borys Kosarev revolutionized theatre design. The attempt to build a national identity in Ukraine resulted in a polyphony of styles and artistic developments across a full range of media – from oil paintings, sketches and sculpture to collages, cinema posters and theatre designs.

Twelve internationally renowned scholars, including curators from the National Art Museum of Ukraine, bring to life this astonishing period of creativity in Ukraine and all the movements it encompassed.

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• Over a thousand stunning traditional artworks, from the forefront of the 21st Century Realist Art Movement
• Presents the winners and finalists of the 13th International ARC Salon Competition
• Artist contributors from across the globe compete in a range of genres, from ‘Imaginative Realism’ to ‘Plein air’ and ‘Portraiture’

With determination to restore the universal language of realism in the visual arts, a group of fine artists and experts banded together to celebrate and propagate Contemporary Realism. They founded the Art Renewal Center in 1999. Since their genesis, this non-profit educational foundation has dedicated itself to encouraging rigorous skill-based training in the methods of the Old Masters, bestowing the title of ‘ARC Approved ‘ on ateliers who share their core values and demonstrate technical mastery.

The International ARC Salon Competition is the largest and most prestigious for realist based art in the USA, arguably the world, receiving this year over 3,750 entries from 69 countries. This year’s winners demonstrate the great breadth and originality that can be found in all facets of fine art. Categories include: Figurative, Portraiture, Imaginative Realism, Landscape, Animals, Sculpture, Drawing, Still Life, Plein Air and the Da Vinci Initiative Award for the Young Aspiring Artist.

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