Anatole Krasnyansky, now residing in California, was already a prominent architect and watercolorist when he left the U.S.S.R. for the United States in 1975, where he found fertile ground for his aesthetic growth. His traditional cityscapes, much admired in Europe, have grown richer, freer and more expressive; and in recent years he has evolved a second, wholly new style with which to render the experience and ideas of his new life in the United States.

With a Master’s Degree in Architecture and Fine Art, he is well versed in every aspect of the structure and design of the buildings he depicts. Since his arrival to the U.S. in 1975, the artist has found important uses for his knowledge of architecture, design and his creative imagination, and he has realized his tremendous potential and achieved virtuosity in several different artistic areas. Working as a scenic artist in television, motion pictures and the theatre, he has designed sets calling for his specialized background. Always a lover of the baroque, he incorporated the strength and fluid grace of that style into his figural compositions, capturing the sense of motion with which a building makes a line flow from one area to another.

Krasnyansky’s awareness of the interdependence of architecture, sculpture, painting and applied art, and his knowledge of these diverse disciplines have shaped his career and found expression in his art. Through experimentation he has developed his own artistic method, one that has freed him from the constraints of traditional watercolor techniques. Krasnyansky’s innovative inclusion of paper texture into the creative process is a dynamic component of his art, resulting in an expansion of the medium’s potential. He is one of the first artists to elevate the watercolor medium to the expressive possibilities usually associated with oil painting. Bordering on the surreal, Krasnyansky’s figures never depart from the recognizable. Altogether new in form, they contain echoes of the artist’s Eastern heritage, the cubist ideas of Picasso and Braque and the modernity and energy of American culture. They are lyrical and yet possess a human presence and combine Krasnyansky’s faith in the human spirit with a rigorous artistic substance and foundation.

Major Exhibitions include:

Dalzell Hatfield Galleries “International Watercolor Masters” (Camille Pissaro, Lionel Feininger, Marc Chagall, Diego Rivera, Reuben Rubin, Anatole Krasnyansky, Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Francois Gilot); Stanford University, Palo Alto, California; Los Gatos Museum, Los Gatos, California; UCLA, Los Angeles, California; Park West Gallery, Southfield, MI; and solo exhibitions in New York, Boston, New Orleans, Atlantic City, San Francisco, Beverly Hills, San Diego and Tokyo.