About the artist:
Anatoly Kryvolap (born in 1946) was an artist destined for Ukrainian art history obscurity in the 1990s but now, post 2000, he can be truly called an artist of world renown following critical acclaim and his inclusion in recent sales at the prestigious European auction houses of Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips. Over many years, Krivolap has refined his distinctive style which is so perfectly embodied in the use of his “hot colour” palette in the work entitled March Evening from the year 2013. It is this style that has earned him recognition abroad and made him one of the most sought after contemporary artists from Ukraine.
Anatoly Kryvolap was born in 1946 in a small town located between Kyiv and Poltava regions called Yagotyn. During the austere post war period, his home town was a rural community almost totally cut off from the industrial urban population of Kyiv only some 100km distant. Auspiciously serving the farming community, his Father was a mechanic, the town remained self contained up until the 1970’s. With little by way of entertainment, Anatoly, and his two brothers, took to drawing to amuse themselves during the long winter nights. Showing talent, even as a child, he left his home at the age of 16 to study to become an artist. He enrolled in 1969 at the Kyiv State Institute of Art and studied under Professor Victor Puzyrkov. During his classical education, whilst he admired the work of such artists as Valentin Serov, he could not escape his true calling diverting him from the recognized State teachings to embrace the abstract. It was later, through experimentation, he developed his own signature style declaring the search for harmony as his ultimate goal. He was drawn to the dramatic connection between open and deep tones to build combinations in which the most aggressive colours found unison and harmony together.
Only after Anatoly Kryvolap’s world wide acceptance and his status as «the most expensive contemporary Ukrainian artists in the world», he received popularity in Ukraine. His credits include; February 18th, 2011, at auction Phillips de Pury & Co, in London, his painting «Moon over the River» (150x150) was sold for $48 492, and in three months at the same auction «The Step» painting (149x200) collected $98 500, which hit record bid prices for Ukrainian art, parallel to that in May at Sotheby’s his «Night» painting got $80 982, and in October painting «Horse. Night» got as much as $124 343. He was in the top 10 most expensive artists of that year. The collectors, who admire such skill and energy of such authentic works, were fighting to acquire his works.
Anatoly Kryvolap works can be found in the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kiev National Museum of Russian Art, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine, funds of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, Khmelnytsky Museum of Modern Art, Zaporozhye Art Museum, Das Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna, Austria), Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (Liverpool, UK), Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum (Japan) and in private collections in Ukraine and abroad.
