Olga Gurski

Olga Gurski

Olga Gurski. 1920s
Born March 18, 1902
Korenevo, Russian Empire
Died April 19, 1975 (aged 73)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Nationality  Ukraine
Citizenship  Argentina
Alma mater Kyiv Art School
Known for portraits, landscapes, still life
Movement Post-impressionism

Olga Gurski (1902-1975) (Gursky, O. Kriukow, Ольга Сергіївна Гурська) was a Ukrainian painter.

Life and work

Olga Gurski traces her descent from an old Ukrainian, formerly Polish, and before that Czech nobility of the XIII c., of the Sternberg coat of arms.[1] It should be mentioned that, fearing the Soviet Russian repressions, she buried the documents she was entrusted with by her dying father, — some of them dating from the XVIII c., when the old lineage settled in Chernihiv (Ukraine) — and only disintered them in 1943, during World War II.

She graduated from the Kyiv Art School in 1929. In 1943, she moved to the West: at first to Lviv, later to Austria. There, having settled in Gmunden, on the Lake Traun, she took part in various art exhibitions (Linz, Salzburg), where her paintings were highly praised by the critics.

In 1948, she emigrated to Argentina, took up her residence in Buenos Aires, and became a citizen of that country.

Olga Gurski. Portrait of the artists's daughter. Oil on canvas. Buenos Aires, ca 1963

Exhibitions of her paintings were held almost every year in Buenos Aires' renowned art galleries, such as Müller, Van Riel, Whitcomb, etc., and in the USA and Canada as well. From the Buenos Aires Provincial Government, she received a special invitation to exhibit her works in Mar del Plata, the famous sea side resort.

Colored plates of some of her canvases illustrated the women's magazine "Para tí".

Olga Gurski. Carnations. Reproduction from women’s magazine “Para Ti” (“For You”). Buenos Aires, 1966

After numerous experiments concerning a painting technique to adopt, she definitely turned to a manner which can best be described as a late Post-impressionism, where, as quoted be the art critic Pedro H. Bidart, "the colors flow like a piece of music by Ravel, or Debussy".

Exhibitions

Some exhibition (incomplete)

Further reading

References

  1. Lidia Kriukow: "Shlyakhetstvo Ol'hy z rodu Gurs'kykh herbu <Sternberg>". Skarbnytsya ukrayins'koyi kultury. Zb. naukovykh prats'. Vyp. 11. Chernihiv, 2009. p. 75–89.