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Downing Yudain LLC is a private advisory business with the Barn @ Downing Yudain, a public exhibition space.
We assist clients with their collections both in purchasing works and helping them sell or donate their collections.
The Barn generally hosts an array of living artists. Many of which are inspired by helping our earth and climate.
Please contact us directly for our advisory services at info@art357.com
The Barn @ Downing Yudain is proud to present the first retrospective of the work of Igor Galanin. Galanin immigrated to the United States in the early 1970’s from Moscow via Italy. Like so many Russians, Galanin knew that life in Russia was not going to be favorable for him and his family.
While is Russia, Igor Galanin was an award-winning children’s book illustrator. Many of those books are still be published in Russian and the France to this day. He had his first show during a year spent in Italy while waiting for papers to come to America. That exhibition completely sold out and most of the buyers were American. With the help of a pastor in Greenwich Connecticut, Igor was able secure travel to United States. Upon arriving to his new country, with assistance from the American collectors who bought his work in Italy we given a show at the Red Barn on Fisher’s Island, New York.
Like the last the show in Italy the show at Fisher’s Island was hugely successful. Next was a show in Boston and then a show at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. He was then asked to be included in a show at Andre Emmerich Gallery in the landmark Russian Émigré exhibition in 1976. That show and particularly Igor’s work was reviewed was reviewed by John Russell in New York Times.
From this time till his death in 2024, Igor showed consistently for 50 years in New York and throughout the country, including a long representations at Aberbach Gallery and David Findlay galleries in New York. He is in many collections throughout the country including works in the notable homes of Glenn Close, Woopie Goldberg, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Jim Henson, and corporate collections including United Technologies as well as numerous private collections.
Galanin works are unique to him, somewhat surreal, expertly executed, they create a world free of the hardship he endured during his 30 years on Soviet Russia. There is an element of the dream world of the surrealist artist Henri Rousseau. Yet each work, whether it is a painting or a sculpture, is celebration of the bounties of life. His sculpture is joyous and modern, using round soft forms to illustrate the animals or human figures. In looking at his sculpture, one is reminded of the work of Elie Nadelman, yet Igor’s creations like his paintings are uniquely his own.
