Now living in New York City, Yuri Gorbachev, talented and famous around the world, is the brightest star in the constellation of Russian artists who came to America from the former USSR. Americans of culture recognize Russia through his art. His energy and enthusiasm for Russia and the Ukraine, where he spent the last twenty years of his life in the USSR before moving to New York, are expressed in his work and help viewers understand emotionally and intellectually the culture which fostered his great energy and talent.
       Gorbachev began his career as a Russian ceramics artist. He arrived in the United States from the former USSR in 1991 with little knowledge of the English language but with an abundance of his great talent and charisma. Famous for ceramics for twenty years in the USSR he dared to change his medium to oil on canvas. The result was a spectacular success.
In 1993 Gorbachev’s first visit to the Far East showed him his true path as a painter – his connection to the Orient was immediate and dynamic and influenced both his style and technique. He brought these influences back to the rest of the world through his paintings. Gorbachev incorporated these different worlds and experiences– Russian, American, and Asian, into his art, and changed and developed into the unique artist he is today.
       Gorbachev’s magnificent work is now represented in the permanent collections of the Louvre, the Kremlin Museum, The Tsarskoye Selo, The United Nations and The White House and more than twenty museums worldwide. On March 14, 1996, the United Nations honored Yuri Gorbachev with a commission to create an original work in conjunction with the release of the UN stamp “Endangered Species.” Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali received Gorbachev’s rendition of Green Parrot On Red Flower at a preview exhibition. Mr. Gorbachev is also represented in the personal collection of President William Jefferson Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton; his painting was personally presented in Washington on July 22, 1996.
       Yuri Gorbachev was classically trained in Soviet art academies and also acquired advanced degrees in philosophy and communication. His most notable accomplishment through his art has been his success in bringing many different cultures together in his own simple language of beauty. His use of lacquer and glazing techniques in his paintings exhibit his classic training and mastery of ceramics.
       Gorbachev’s artistic career has flourished in New York City and he has had solo exhibits all over the United States and Europe.
       In 1994, “Stolichnaya” commissioned Gorbachev to design their annual Christmas “Holiday” advertisement for the famous Russian vodka, which appeared in hundreds of magazines around the world. Michel Roux, art collector and President of Carillon (distributor of Absolut and Stolichnaya) was the person behind the creative advertising of Stolichnaya and Absolut. He used other artists including Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. Roux described Yuri Gorbachev as “…the Angel from Russia. He brings out whatever is good from there. The spirit, the subject matter, and the colors of his work-profound in their simplicity-exemplify what Russia is all about.”

       For the past eight years Gorbachev has traveled extensively; his artistic development moved from his naïve style to his most recent intricate works. He uses a sophisticated technique with precious metals like gold and copper along with specially formulated lacquers over oil on canvas. The complex technique developed over almost a decade, using ceramic techniques on canvas is unique and inimitable.

       Recognizing Gorbachev’s great talent and influence as an artist not only in the United States, but worldwide, Rizzoli International, the prestigious art book publishers, published “The Art of Yuri Gorbachev” in 1998. It presents 100 full-color plates divided into thematic sections spanning Gorbachev’s career. He is only one of a few Russian artists ever to have Rizzoli publish their books including Chagall and Malevich. Only one or two living artists a year are published by Rizzoli; in 1997 Fernando Botero was chosen, and in 1998, Yuri Gorbachev was selected.
       In 2000, The Bertelsmann Group, published “The Art of Paradise”, a major book about Yuri’s life and art explaining his symbolism, roots and development as an artist and containing his ceramics from the first twenty years of is career, his early oils and later more intricate works.
       At the end of 1999, Yuri Gorbachev had a joint exhibition of original oils with Marc Chagall original paintings in Prague in a major gallery. The show, very successful, was viewed by many thousands of people over a six-week period.

       Mr. Gorbachev has had his work exhibited over the past several years at THE NATIONAL FINE ART MUSEUM OF THE UKRAINE, 2000; THE MOSCOW MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, 2003;; THE RUSSIAN MUSEUM OF KIEV, 2005; THE ODESSA STATE LITERATURE MUSEUM, 2005 & 2006; THE DONEZK MUSEUM OF FINE ART, 2006; MUSEUM CONJUNTO CULTURAL DA SAIXA, SAN PAULO, BRAZIL, 2005. Brazil’s major magazine, CARAS, featured Gorbachev as person of the year 2006. Gorbachev’s exhibit, visited by many thousands of people, became a cultural phenomenon in San Paulo- his images were reproduced on T-shirts, scarves, clothing and worn by stars like the Rolling Stones, Bono, Jamie Fox, and many other visiting luminaries.

       Yuri Gorbachev is one of twenty prominent visual artists and 60 film and music stars including Richard Gere, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jeff Bridges, Brooke Shields, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange to participate in THE LISTEN CAMPAIGN, a worldwide campaign to help disadvantaged children. A Global fundraising broadcast event from Madison Square Garden, New York City which will reach 500 million people in over eighty countries and an auction at Christies was the culmination of the event in 2008

       In June 2009, the first Russian Art Fair in London displayed a stunning array of the finest Russian art from the last millennium, including classical icons from the tenth century through the nineteenth century; art from the Hermitage Collection; works by Faberge; classical painters like Goncharova, Malevich and Chagall among many others.

       Yuri Gorbachev aptly named “the angel from Russia” was the brightest and best of the living artists represented at the London Art Fair. Although Gorbachev’s art has been acknowledged worldwide and he has received numerous prizes and awards, he continues to work with inexhaustible energy with Russia always at the center of his inspiration.

       In an article in The New York Times, journalist Carey Goldberg said “There is no better interview subject than a man who just wants to make people happy. A man so brimming with energy that he repeats and rerepeats words of emphasis, a man with a mission so simple and sweet that it works for Americans and Russians and Indonesians alike. And there is no better art, to my taste, than art that radiates the same kind of joie de vivre so that it acts as a tonic on all those who see it, uplifting not only with its beauty but with an exuberance as potent as the blooming of northern plants in summer.”.

 

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