Every Russian occupier dreams of seeing the picturesque moonrise over the Ukrainian Dnipro River with their own eyes. But there is one thing that the Russian occupier does not understand. To get this aesthetic experience is possible in two ways: for free – by coming to Ukraine as a friend and guest; or for a fee – laying down $300,000. It was for this record price at the summer auction in Kyiv that a private collector acquired the painting “The Moon Rose Over the Dnipro” by Ukrainian artist Ivan Marchuk.
Of course, the Russian occupier has neither friendly intentions towards the neighboring people nor such an amount of money. Therefore, the only experience they will definitely get in Ukraine is death. Meanwhile, Ukrainian artists, even despite the war, will continue to create art that is increasingly appreciated both within the country and in international markets. Today, the list of the most expensive Ukrainian paintings looks like this:
$300,000
Ivan Marchuk created his main masterpiece “The Moon Rose Over the Dnipro” using his signature technique of “pliontanism”. This is when a painting is created by applying layer after layer of very thin lines. The painstaking work takes a lot of time – the painting “matures” to its deserved commercial value for even longer. For example, this most expensive work of Ukrainian painting with a magical view of a night village was created back in 1980.
$186,000
Anatoliy Kryvolap is another Ukrainian who glorifies rural metaphysics, adding contrasting neon paints more typical of city color schemes. Kryvolap’s most expensive work is the canvas “Horse. Evening”, which is part of a large “horse” series. These bright and misty bucolic Ukrainian horses, as you will see further, are an exceptionally good financial investment.
$165,000
A participant in the civil war, a prisoner of war camp, an escapee to Paris, a recruited Soviet intelligence agent, and finally a repatriate to Kyiv – the biography of Ukrainian artist Mykola Hlushchenko resembles a Hollywood film in which Tom Cruise or Will Smith could play the lead role. Alongside his spy adventures, he created thousands of works, the most famous and expensive of which is the radically stylized painting “Sinister Sea”.
$150,000
In 1987, during the height of Gorbachev’s perestroika, Kyiv artists Arsen Savadov and Heorhii Senchenko painted the gigantic – 2.5 x 3 meters – postmodernist painting “Cleopatra’s Sorrow”. Here you have a man-like woman riding a tiger, mountains with a volcano, and references to Salvador Dali and Diego Velázquez’s portrait of Balthazar Carlos. After this painting, it became finally clear that free Ukrainian artists would never again be slaves to the stereotypical Soviet type of thinking.
$124,000
And again, Anatoliy Kryvolap’s horse – this time a night one. The painting, aptly named “Horse. Night”, is creatively connected to the painting “Horse. Evening” and, probably, evokes in the artist sadness from that cosmic injustice that there are not many named time intervals in a day. Perhaps if Kryvolap had known in advance that these “horses” of his would sell like hotcakes, he would have named the paintings differently for commercial purposes – for example, “Horse. 12:35” or “Horse. Seven Minutes After Midnight”. Moreover, his unique horse for several tens of thousands of dollars could have been easily painted for each second of the day.
$110,000
Another superhit – the painting “Seagulls” – was created by Mykola Hlushchenko in 1972, so Alfred Hitchcock could not have seen it before making his horror film “The Birds” (1963). A pity, because otherwise, he would have definitely come to shoot the bloody attack of seagulls on Tippi Hedren in Ukraine.
$98,500
Sometimes Anatoliy Kryvolap manages not to think about horses for a while – then he paints something else, for example, “Steppe”. Yet still – when you look into this neon horizon, you seem to catch a faint horse laugh, and therefore, holding your breath, you wait for the tired one to come galloping towards you from afar – whether it be “Horse. Evening” or “Horse. Night”.
$97,000
In 2008, a painting of an estimated value of 100 million dollars – “The Taking of Christ” or “The Kiss of Judas” by Caravaggio – was stolen from the Odesa Museum. Odesa native Oleksandr Roitburd, inspired by this criminal story, painted “Goodbye Caravaggio”, which is considered not so much a farewell to the masterpiece of the famous Italian Baroque artist, but rather his personal farewell to the Baroque myth that lies at the foundation of all modern Ukrainian art. Interestingly, a few years later, the stolen Caravaggio painting was unexpectedly found in Berlin and returned to the Odesa Museum.
$96,800
Ivan Marchuk’s style is unmistakable – once again the classic “pliontanism” of the 1980s era, and once again a landscape of a Ukrainian village. But now, instead of the hypnotic light of the night moon – no less hypnotic setting sun. You can see such natural beauty with your own eyes by visiting the Dnipro region of Kaniv.
Art Can Help
This was the ranking of commercial records in Ukrainian painting. However, the charitable art records since the beginning of the full-scale war are even more impressive. While the Russian occupiers are deliberately targeting museums and monuments of Ukrainian art with missiles, civilized people spare no money to save its masterpieces.
$500,000
The absolute record for charitable auctions in Ukraine was set by Maria Prymachenko’s painting “Flowers Grew Near the Fourth Block”, sold in the third month of the Russian invasion for half a million dollars. The occupiers bombed Prymachenko’s house-museum in Ivankiv and, advancing towards Kyiv, dug trenches in the Red Forest around the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant – so it is symbolic that the artist’s painting about the radiation tragedy of 1986 raised money to buy 125 minibuses for the front. The painting itself was handed over to the National Art Museum for safekeeping by the anonymous buyer, where it can be seen by anyone after the war.
$120,000
Source: Gs.art
This considerable sum from the sale in 2022 of Ivan Marchuk’s painting “Garden of Temptation” was also donated to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The charitable auction was called “Art Can Help” – these words are not empty in Ukraine.
$110,000
In 2022, at the charitable Venetian auction “Benefit for Ukraine’s People & Culture”, Maria Prymachenko’s painting “My House, My Truth” was initially listed for 1,000 euros, but it quickly sold for one hundred times that amount. The money is planned to be used for the reconstruction of the artist’s museum.
As you can see, Putin’s military aggression has done, continues to do, and will surely do a lot of different evil things, but one thing is clear already now – the Russian invasion, which destroys everything Ukrainian, including art, only increases its value at world auctions. Unfortunately, this is human nature – we begin to truly appreciate something only when we lose it.
Source: The Gaze
