Painting the Valley

Featuring more than 70 plein-air paintings of the communities, farmlands, forests, waterways, and historically significant places of the Shenandoah Valley, Painting  the Valley: Works by Andrei Kushnir opens in the MSV Shenandoah Valley Gallery on April 1. An accomplished artist who has exhibited his work nationally, Andrei Kushnir has painted more than 260 Shenandoah Valley landscapes during the last decade. His works depict popular Shenandoah Valley landmarks as well as places treasured by locals but little-known to the rest of the world. Andrei Kushnir has been a full-time painter since 1980, and his work has been exhibited widely in juried and invitational shows throughout the United States. Painting the Valley is on view in the MSV through September 11, 2016.

Andrei Kushnir

Andrei Kushnir grew up in Scott, Mississippi and Chicago, Illinois. Always interested in art, he was a cartoonist for the Chicago Illini student newspaper of the University of Illinois at Chicago. After experimenting with various media, he started painting in oils in 1980, and quickly discovered the joys of painting landscapes outdoors, en plein air. Essentially self-taught, he also took lessons with artists Michael Francis, at the Alexandria, Virginia, Art League, and Michele Taylor, his first dealer in Washington, D.C.

Andrei Kushnir developed a naturalistic, realist style, and has painted in every type of weather, focusing on the American landscape. This includes the Potomac River and C&O Canal, both near his Maryland home. He has also painted in Virginia’s Crooked Run Valley and in every part of the Shenandoah Valley. He has painted along the shores of Maine, New York, Cape Hatteras and Florida’s Gulf Coast, as well as in the Western U.S. states, particularly Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, as well as in New Zealand, Italy and Holland. He has exhibited his works in numerous juried and invitational shows throughout the United States.

Kushnir has been a member of the Alexandria and Fairfax, Virginia, Art Leagues, as well as the Washington, DC Capitol Hill Art League, the Blue Ridge Arts Council, Front Royal, VA, and the Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers Society, Washington, DC., where he served as vice president. He was elected a signature member of the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society, a member of New York’s Salmagundi Club, and the Washington Society of Landscape Painters. He is also a member of the Oil Painters of America and an Official Coast Guard Artist.

Kushnir had his first one-artist show in 1998 at the Museum of Florida’s Art and Culture, Sebring, Florida, now administered by the South Florida Community College. Subsequent one-artist shows were held at the Capitol Hill Art League, Washington, D.C.; Taylor & Sons Fine Art, Washington, D.C.; Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth Beach; and the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA, where he was the first living artist accorded such an exhibition.

Exhibition sponsors:
The Woltz–Winchester Foundation
Shenandoah Country Q102

Gallery: Thomas Hudson House and Hudson Crossroads Environs, an oil on panel painted by Andrei Kushnir on site in Shenandoah County, July 12, 2015. Home of Joseph Funk, an oil painted by Andrei Kushnir on site. Exhibtion opening reception.