First Face of War: Intimate Portrait of Ukrainian Teacher, 2022. Zhenya Gershman (American, b. 1975)...

Description

First Face of War: Intimate Portrait of Ukrainian Teacher, 2022
Zhenya Gershman (American, b. 1975)
Oil on canvas
14 x 12 inches (35.6 x 30.5 cm)
Signed to lower left

100% of proceeds from the sale of Zhenya Gershman's painting based on Wolfgang Schwan's internationally circulated photo (courtesy Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) will benefit Ukrainian Red Cross Society.

Inspired by a photograph taken by Wolfgang Schwan, the image of Elena Kurilo, injured during a Russian missile strike on Chuguev, has come to define the human toll of Russia's invasion, along with the resilience of the Ukrainian people.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. Philadelphia photojournalist Wolfgang Schwan took his picture of Kurilo on February 25, moments after the 52-year-old teacher's home in the Kharkiv region had been obliterated by a Russian airstrike. In the photo, we meet Kurilo, head wrapped in gauze, face encrusted with blood, pale blue eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare. Within hours of its creation, the image appeared on countless front pages and news broadcasts around the world beneath headlines; "Putin Invades," "The Bloodshed Begins," and "Bloody Hell."

"People were seeing the horrors of war on day one," Schwan recalls. "In hours, you're seeing the civilians, the bystanders of this conflict, are the ones suffering the most. In any conflict, it's most important to highlight the suffering of the people who aren't active participants in it, and that helps inform the world of her suffering and that of the civilians caught in this horror."

Some 6,400 miles away, in her Los Angeles home, Moscow-born artist Zhenya Gershman was among the millions who witnessed Schwan's portrait of Elena Kurilo. "It spoke to me," she declares. Gershman had her first exhibition in St. Petersburg when she was 14. Her parents immigrated to the United States because they "believed that the artist should be able to express themselves freely and without fear," says Gershman, whose work has been featured in galleries and private collections worldwide. The war began on her birthday, Feb. 24, which Gershman spent in front of the television - "paralyzed by horror," she said. The very next day, she saw Schwan's photograph of the bandaged, bloodied Kurilo.

In a Zoom conversation with photographer Schwan, still in Ukraine, painter Gershman explains, "Through your image, Wolfgang, Elena spoke to me." She continues, "All I knew was, I had to paint her. I chose even more of a closeup - even more intimate, straight into her face. She's close enough in age to me that I can imagine this could be me; she's also a teacher, and I'm a teacher. I didn't see a woman. I saw this battlefield on her face."

"Zhenya's interpretation of this iconic image forces us to focus on the human toll of war, its immutable impact on humanity," says Joshua Benesh, Chief Strategy Officer at Heritage Auctions. "It is not a charitable effort that risks glamorizing the act of charity or somehow further attenuating us from the reason for humanitarian relief efforts, but rather one that confronts the fundamental truth that we need to have this conversation because the people of Ukraine are suffering."

In the best tradition of fine artists who drill down to the soul of their subjects, mining emotion and subtext that might be missed on a purely superficial level, Gershman's work captures not only the terror of war, but the determination and hope in the eyes of a survivor, that war may obscure, but never truly erase from the human spirit of women like Kurilo.

"I believe in the power of art," Gershman says. "I believe a simple act of painting the truth can change the world. I am a total idealist. And I knew something good would come out of it."

At the time of this writing, the war still rages; teacher Elena chose to remain in Ukraine, as did photographer Wolfgang Schwan. Painting accompanied by two companion pieces: 1) an 8" x 10" print of the Wolfgang Schwan photograph that inspired the portrait and the world and 2) an NFT, the first ever offered by Gershman, comprised of a high-quality digital edition of The First Face of War.

Zhenya Gershman is known for her dramatic monumental portraits. Born in Moscow, she held her first solo exhibition in St. Petersburg at age fourteen. Gershman was selected as a subject of the Documentary Film Our Generation, a project dedicated to searching for the five most talented teenagers in Russia, showing hope for the cultural future of the country. The youngest student to be admitted to Otis Art Institute, Zhenya graduated with Honors and later received her Masters of Fine Arts degree from Art Center College of Design. Today, Zhenya's work is featured in such preeminent private and public collections as Donald Simon, Richard Weisman, and Arte Al Limite Museum in Santiago, Chile. Zhenya participates in important international exhibitions, including Art Aspen, Art Miami, and Art Chicago. She was selected to create iconic portraits of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan for the MusiCares GRAMMY Foundation. Zhenya is a recipient of numerous awards, including the ALEX Award in Visual Arts, presented nationally to honored scholars and artists. Her recent exhibition, Larger Than Life, garnered national media attention. Gershman is an Ambassador to Royal Talens North America and Blick Art.

Gershman worked for over a decade at The J. Paul Getty Museum, bringing her passion and unique understanding of art to thousands of people. Her scholarly work is dedicated to uncovering new perspectives regarding the life and work of Rembrandt and Dürer, and she has contributed to such exhibitions as Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits and Rembrandt: Telling the Difference. Zhenya's first-hand knowledge of traditional oil painting techniques has led her to a Rembrandt discovery. Her groundbreaking finding of a hidden Rembrandt self-portrait was published by Arion, Boston University, and was brought to European audiences by Le Monde. Zhenya is a Co-Founder of the non-profit organization Project Awe, a Founder of Z Art Academy and Invisible Museum Tours, currently residing, teaching, and painting in her studio in Los Angeles.

Wolfgang Schwan is a documentary photographer. Born in New York, Schwan's family moved to southeastern Pennsylvania when he was five. He grew up in the area and attended Kutztown University, and eventually moved to Philadelphia in his early twenties. His passion for photography came the way many people enter the medium, shooting photos of friends. An avid rock climber, he would snap pictures of his friends dangling from the sides of boulders when they climbed together. He is a member of NPPA (National Press Photographers Association) and The Curious Society.

Wolfgang has had his photos published in the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, Telegraph, LA Times, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The Literary Supplement, The Irish Examiner, The Saturday Paper, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, The Economist, 1843 Mag, Die Zeit, Il Foglio, Philadelphia Inquirer, Axios, VICE, Business Insider, The Week and Grid Magazine. Wolfgang Schwan is currently based in Philadelphia with his dog, Tor.



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