Description:
Visual description: A pale-skinned, black-haired man with a thick mustache sits on a brown chair in this square oil painting. He holds one arm on the armrest of the chair and the other rests on his hip. His portrait occupies the majority of the frame positioned against a green wall and a partially visible landscape painting outlined by a golden frame. The young looking man assumes an upright posture and his legs are crossed. He wears a blue collared shirt with a red tie obscured by what seems like a yellow knitted vest, a bulky, green trench coat that falls past the lower bound of the frame, and brown pants. The man has a neutral facial expression and relaxed fingers. At the bottom left corner of the frame, there is a signature in Cyrillic and a date “95” in red paint. (Text and voice: Andres Fernandez '29)
Label Text:
Jurii Maniichuk (1955–2009) was born in the Lviv region of western Ukraine. After earning a doctorate in law from Kyiv State University, he moved to Canada and then to the United States. He returned to the newly independent Ukraine in the 1990s, and contributed to drafting Ukrainian property and banking laws during a period of hyperinflation and economic decline. Alongside his legal work, Maniichuk pursued his passion for Soviet art. In consultation with art experts, he visited studios across Ukraine and purchased paintings directly from artists and their heirs. In addition, Maniichuk commissioned his own portrait from seven renowned Soviet-era painters to explore how each would interpret the same subject. Among them, this work by Oleksandr Lopukhov stands out for its grandeur. Depicting Maniichuk in a dramatic pose in front of a landscape from his collection, the painting echoes the European tradition of formal portraiture that underscores social status and personal achievement.
MT, 2025
Tags:
painting; portraits; sitting Subjects:
Painting; Portraits; Sitting position; Canvas Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2020.10 |
