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Epoch Times
06-05-2025
- General
- Epoch Times
Fantastical Porcelain Florals at The Frick Collection
The Frick Collection's reopening after a five-year renovation has been heralded as a triumph. One of the wondrous things about visiting the museum right now is its special exhibition 'Porcelain Garden: Vladimir Kanevsky at The Frick Collection,' on view through Oct. 6, 2025. Installed throughout the museum's premises, including galleries on both the first and second floor and the Garden Court, are 19 breathtakingly intricate floral installations by the Ukrainian-born Kanevsky. Cohesively installed alongside diverse fine and decorative arts from the institution's permanent collection, these sculptures range in scale, form, and color. Each one enchants the viewer with its special blend of botanical accuracy and artistry. Kanevky's Floral Displays "Lemon Tree," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky is installed in the Garden Court. Soft-paste porcelain, parian body, glazes, and copper. The Frick Collection, New York City. (Joseph Coscia Jr.) Kanevsky was born in 1951 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, but now lives and works in Fort Lee, New Jersey. While living in Russia, he studied architecture and sculpture, which proved to be integral foundations for his later porcelain practice. In 1989, he immigrated to New York—he had only $100 and spoke no English. Kanevsky took another leap of faith when he responded to a job ad for an artist who could produce an 18th-century porcelain tureen in the shape of a melon. He attempted the commission, which came from a prominent interior designer with a shop on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The piece was a success. Then, Kanevsky explored porcelain flowers, as he had been fascinated by botany since childhood. Detail of Vladimir Kanevsky's "Lemon Tree," 2024–2025, in the Frick's Garden Court. (Joseph Coscia Jr.) He compares floral structures to architecture, and he enjoys the technical challenges inherent in his work, which has been exhibited internationally, from Saint Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum to Washington's Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens. Tastemakers and style icons, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, and Martha Stewart have collected his work. Kanevsky says that 'Flowers are arguably the most prevalent topic in the history of art and architecture. Their cultural and symbolic significance offered infinite possibilities for artists.' His work is greatly inspired by traditional European porcelain dating to the 18th century, of which the Frick has a superb collection. The museum possesses examples from the leading French, German, and Viennese makers. An exquisite tableau in the exhibition inserts three Kanevsky tulips with delicate petals into a Du Paquier Manufactory vase. Each flower the artist makes is meticulously sculpted and hand-painted. Related Stories 4/30/2025 4/20/2025 "Tulip Stems," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky is installed in the Du Paquier Passage. Soft-paste porcelain, glazes, overglaze, and copper. The Frick Collection, New York City. (Joseph Coscia Jr.) A Tribute to Helen Frick The exhibition, the culmination of a three-year collaboration between the artist and the Frick's curatorial team, is an homage to the museum's floral displays from its original 1935 opening. At that time, Henry Clay Frick's daughter, Helen, chose each room's fresh floral arrangement. "Lilies of the Valley," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky are installed in the Boucher Room. Soft-paste porcelain, parian body, and copper. The Frick Collection, New York City. (Joseph Coscia Jr.) Xavier F. Salomon, the Frick's Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, commends Kanevsky's tribute to the museum's 1935 inaugural floral displays. He says that the Contemporary artist's 'porcelain creations allow us to honor this tradition—along with the museum's important collections of historic porcelain and ceramics. His artistry bridges past and present, echoing the museum's longstanding dedication to beauty and innovation.' In two of the galleries, Kanevsky has repeated Helen's selections with his installation of camellias in the Library and lilies of the valley in the Boucher Room, part of the newly opened second-floor family rooms. "Lilies of the Valley," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky are installed in the Boucher Room. Soft-paste porcelain, parian body, and copper. The Frick Collection, New York City. Joseph Coscia Jr. The other porcelain works honor Helen's intentions while juxtaposing different plants and flowers with the displayed art, inspiring reflection and conversation among viewers. One poignant tribute is the vibrant and ripe 'Pomegranate Plant' in the Gold-Grounds Room. After her father's death, Helen pursued acquiring religious Early Italian Renaissance paintings with gold leaf surfaces to add to t he Frick's holdings. Post-renovation, these works have been assembled together for display in her former bedroom. "Pomegranate Plant," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky is installed in the Gold-Grounds Room. Soft-paste porcelain, glazes, copper, and terracotta. The Frick Collection, New York City. Joseph Coscia Jr. 'Pomegranate Plant' is dramatically situated in front of the room's mantle. The Frick writes that the sculpture 'is a tribute to a plant whose fruits are frequently represented in early Italian paintings and would have been well known by the artists represented in this gallery.' Above the mantle is a small but sumptuous picture by Gentile da Fabriano (circa 1370– 1427), who is considered among the greatest painters of his era. Born in the Marches region, he worked throughout Italy, from Milan and Rome to Venice and Tuscany. Patrons included the pope and the doge. His lyrical, highly detailed paintings are characterized by delicate brushwork, rich colors, and elaborate textile patterns. Additionally, Gentile was highly skilled in the application and tooling of gold leaf backgrounds. The Frick's ' ' dates from 1423 to 1425 and may have been made for a private patron's family chapel. At its center is the Madonna with the Christ Child, rendered in elegant, flowing lines. Gentile's advanced interest in naturalism is visible in the realistic, portrait-like heads of Saint Lawrence at left and Saint Julian the Hospitaler at right. Fragonard Room The Fragonard Room on the museum's first floor displays 14 panels by the French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Joseph Coscia Jr. In contrast to the Gold-Grounds Room, the first floor Fragonard Room was assembled during Henry Clay Frick's lifetime and has been a visitor favorite at the museum since its opening. Initially, Mr. and Mrs. Frick used the space as their Drawing Room. A year after their mansion was finished in 1914, they acquired a set of lovely panels by the French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), which required the reconfiguration of the room. These panels are considered among the most romantic explorations of love in all of art history. Specifically selected furniture and objets d'art were subsequently added to enhance Fragonard's artworks. The Rococo artist Fragonard was born in Grasse, located in southern France. He trained in Paris under the distinguished painters Je an-S iméon Chardin and François Boucher and became one of the most important French artists of the second half of the 18th century. Fragonard produced a large body of work that included easel paintings and large-scale decorative panels often of genre scenes. "The Progress of Love: Love Letters," 1771–1772, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Oil on canvas; 124 7/8 inches by 85 3/8 inches. The Frick Collection, New York City. Joseph Coscia Jr. The Frick's Fragonard Room collection features 14 pictures, with the series referred to as 'The Progress of Love.' The four principal scenes—'The Pursuit,' 'The Meeting,' 'The Lover Crowned,' and 'Love Letters'—date to a 1771 to 1772 commission. The patroness was the infamous Madame du Barry, King Louis XV of France's last mistress, and the intended setting for the works was the music pavilion of her château west of Paris. However, perhaps due to society's changing artistic tastes, she declined the finished works. Instead, they were kept, probably rolled up, by Fragonard in Paris for 20 years. Upon his move to a cousin's villa in Grasse, the canvases were finally installed. Fragonard created an additional 10 pictures to fill the house's main salon. Over 100 years later, the series passed through the hands of English dealers before selling to American financier J.P. Morgan. After his death, the powerful art dealer Joseph Duveen purchased them for $1.25 million (over $31 million today) and sold them in turn to Henry Clay Frick at cost. Kanevsky has created a lush assemblage of cascading roses for this room, as well as displays of white hyacinths. "Cascading Roses," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky are installed in the Fragonard Room. Parian body, copper, and terracotta. The Frick Collection, New York City. Joseph Coscia Jr. The sculptures in 'Porcelain Garden: Vladimir Kanevsky at The Frick Collection' induce awe and wonder. They help physically define the museum's spaces, both old and new, and enhance communication with the permanent collection. The flowers are so lifelike that one can almost smell the bouquets, and careful examination reveals imitation insect holes on some of the leaves. Kanevsky says, 'There is everything in flowers—history, drama, structure, beauty, and fragrance.' The same can be said about the Frick Collection and its special exhibition. "Cherry Blossoms," 2024–2025, by Vladimir Kanevsky are displayed in the Oval Room alongside James McNeill Whistler's 1871–1874 Joseph Coscia Jr. 'Porcelain Garden: Vladimir Kanevsky at The Frick Collection' exhibition runs through Oct. 6, 2025 in New York City. To find out more, visit What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
New York Times
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
An Artist's Journey From the Soviet Union to the Frick
At the upper levels of capital-S society, or what remains of it, the name Vladimir Kanevsky is quietly dropped in conversation as a tell for arrival, a foolproof marker of taste. 'People who know, know,' said the interior designer and philanthropist Charlotte Moss, referring to Mr. Kanevsky, an artist who works in porcelain. The fashion designer Tory Burch once commissioned a 30-person dinner service from him. Not to be outdone, the interior designer Alberto Pinto ordered up a set of Mr. Kanevsky's floral dishes comprising more than 250 individual works. The society swan Deeda Blair curated a show of his flower sculptures at the high-end department store Bergdorf Goodman. The designer Carolyne Roehm promptly acquired most of them. Mr. Kanevsky's status as society's best kept secret seemed to change last week, when an Artnet headline declared: 'Porcelain Virtuoso Blows Up at the Frick." The Frick Collection, a gloriously staid New York City museum that reopened on April 17 after a five-year, $220 million renovation, is the last place anyone might associate with the latest thing. But there, amid masterpieces by Vermeer, Bellini and Rembrandt in the refreshed Beaux-Arts mansion on Fifth Avenue, stand 30 of Mr. Kanevsky's specially commissioned floral works. For Mr. Kanevsky, the Frick commission was both a homage 'to my beloved museum,' as he said by phone from his home in Fort Lee, N.J., and a nod to the fresh flowers used by Helen Clay Frick, a daughter of the museum's founder, to lighten the somber mood of the building when it opened to the public in 1935. A selection of modestly-scaled replicas of Mr. Kanevsky's new works for the Frick were produced to sell at the museum's gift shop: Of the 29 potted blooms he had created, 27 had sold by opening day. Priced from $3,000 to $15,000, they were a far cry from usual tote bag souvenirs. The Kanevsky commission was a testament to immigration, according to Howard Slatkin, the interior designer credited with having discovered the artist. 'It's a classic only-in-America story,' Mr. Slatkin said by phone from his home in Bermuda. 'Or, at least, it would have been until recently.' Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, when it was part of the Soviet Union, Mr. Kanevsky, now 74, was trained as an architect. He came to the United States as a political refugee in 1989. 'It was not a great time to be Jewish in Russia,' Mr. Slatkin said. Speaking virtually no English at the time, Mr. Kanevsky joined a community of Ukrainian expatriates who had settled in and around Hoboken, N.J. A lawyer friend of his spotted a flyer Mr. Slatkin had posted at a health food store seeking a craftsperson capable of replicating items from his mother's collection of Meissen porcelain. 'I wanted someone who could copy an 18th-century melon tureen,' Mr. Slatkin said. Though Mr. Kanevsky knew almost nothing about porcelain, he began experimenting, using a small kiln he had purchased to fire clay sculptures. He eventually developed a technique for creating, petal by petal, the flowers that would bring him to the attention of the society people who would become his principal patrons. 'Without even realizing it, I developed this niche,' Mr. Kanevsky said. Ms. Moss, the interior designer, was an early backer. 'I became aware of him through Howard Slatkin and commissioned him to make pots of flowers based on the seasons for me to sell," she said. These proved so successful that Mr. Kanevsky was spurred on to bolder experiments. 'He did a tree peony for a client in Texas,' Ms. Moss said. Soon, his sculptural flora began turning up in some of Manhattan's most elegant rooms; in shelter magazine features; at the Dior home furnishings store in Paris; at exhibitions at the Hillwood mansion in Washington, D.C., the one-time the home of the cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post; and at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, a former residence of czars that is now a part of the State Hermitage Museum. 'His artistry bridges past and present,' Xavier F. Salomon, the deputy director and chief curator at the Frick Collection, said in a statement. It also melds the illusion of floral recreation with the muscularity of sculpture. Consider Mr. Kanevsky's wild artichoke set in a pot near Giovanni Bellini's 'St. Francis in the Desert,' perhaps the Frick's most celebrated painting, or his human-scale hollyhock set alongside a monumental portrait by Anthony van Dyck. Mr. Kanevsky modestly attributes his success to the combination of his architectural training and happenstance. When he accepted the Frick commission, he was far from confident that his sculptures belonged among the greatest works of all time. 'There are so many masterpieces,' Mr. Kanevsky said. 'My first task was to understand, Who am I next to a Bellini? Do I belong that world? Obviously, no.' The conclusion he reached was that his flora could be thought of as conversation pieces, in dialogue with great masterworks. 'Then it's up to viewers to decide whether they deserve to be there,' he said.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Frick Collection reopens after $220M renovation: ‘An incredible museum'
NEW YORK (PIX11) – To some, it's the best museum in New York City. The Frick Collection just reopened after a $220 million, five year renovation. Among the highlights are the porcelain flowers created by a Ukrainian sculptor named Vladimir Kanevsky More Local News Inside one of the grandest mansions on Fifth Avenue, alongside Rembrandts, Turners, and Titians, 19 installations resemble gorgeous flower arrangements but are crafted from porcelain and metal by Vladimir Kanevsky. The Ukrainian-born sculptor lovingly and painstakingly created these lilacs, artichokes, a lemon tree, blueberries, pomegranates, and many more to complement the masterpieces in each room. 'It means everything, it's like landing on Mars,' Kanevsky, the sculptor, told PIX11 News. 'And I never in my dreams thought I would have such a large show in such an incredible museum, which was my favorite before the reconstruction, and now it's my relative.' The director of The Frick Collection found the Porcelain Garden created by Kanevsky breathtaking. 'We cannot use real flowers for conservation reasons in the galleries, but we found Vladimir Kanevsky who makes these incredibly beautiful and lifelike flowers made of porcelain and metal,' Axel Ruger, the director of The Frick Collection, told PIX11 News. 'And it now replicate that atmosphere at the Frick when it first opened its doors to the public.' For 90 years, the second floor of the Frick was closed to the public. They were the private rooms where the family lived, but now these ten rooms are open for viewing. And in the last room, where Kanevsky worked with the curators to add his porcelain flowers, he made an unusual yet inspired choice. 'Let's put black poppies here,' Kanevsky told PIX11 News. 'They said he died here. They meant Mr. Frick,' he added. At this packed reopening weekend, Kanevsky was applauded by museumgoers who had so many questions. One from Szilard Kiss, a museum goer: 'Where did you get inspiration to combine metal and porcelain in flowers?' Kanevsky was happy to answer: 'It's an old European tradition. They started porcelain flowers in 18th century. I'm based on that tradition, but I do completely different things,' he added. Another enthusiastic museum goer, Karen Krenis added: 'We've been going from room to room and ignoring the masters because this is so incredible,' she said. And there's only one request from the sculptor. 'Don't smell it. Don't touch it because they are fragile,' Kanevsky said. Vladimir Kanevsky's porcelain garden will be at The Frick Collection until October 6. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Al Jazeera
10-03-2025
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Ukraine announces plan to boost FPV drone arsenal
Ministry of Defence says it will buy 4.5 million first-person view drones in 2025, triple last year's amount. 10 Mar 2025 Ukraine has announced plans this year to buy about 4.5 million first-person view (FPV) drones, one of the most inexpensive and potent weapons in its war effort against Russia. In a statement on Monday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said it would allocate the equivalent of more than $2.6bn for the purchases. Hlib Kanevsky, director of the ministry's procurement policy department, said Ukraine had purchased more than 1.5 million drones in 2024, 96 percent of which were bought from Ukrainian manufacturers and suppliers. 'This year, the figures will be even higher because the capabilities of the domestic defence industry in 2025 are approximately 4.5 million FPV drones,' Kanevsky said, adding that the ministry 'plans to purchase them all'. Small and cheap, FPV drones are controlled by pilots on the ground and often crash into targets while laden with explosives. In April, a NATO official said FPV drones that cost less than $1,000 had destroyed two-thirds of Russian tanks worth millions. Ukraine became the world's largest major arms importer from 2020 to 2024, the period when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine's imports increased nearly 100 times over the previous four-year period. The country, which is seeking strong security guarantees from its partners before agreeing to any peace talks with Russia, is developing its own defence industry to reduce its dependence on its Western allies. It plans to also build long-range drones. The statement said the ministry for the past three years has purchased most of its drones in the country while the number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) supplied to its armed forces had increased significantly. Kanevsky also said all procurement plans for this year have received money in the budget, which will ensure that the front line is supplied with UAVs as soon as possible. Both Russia and Ukraine have come to rely on cheaper and more effective alternatives to conventional artillery during the three-year conflict. In a separate statement on Monday, Kyiv's top general, Oleksandr Syrskii, said Ukrainian drones had destroyed 22 percent more targets last month compared with January, but added that Russian forces were also adapting. 'We simply have no right to lag behind the enemy in those areas of technological warfare where we should be arming and strengthening ourselves by our own resources,' Syrskii said.
