WORLD’S BEST CELEBRITY PORTRAITS BY MCCOY, KOZLOVA, POWELL, VAN DOORN, PERSSON, SERSTINSKAJA, FILICHKIN & GROCHOLSKA-JANCZARA
Celebrity portrait artists from USA, Russia, Netherlands, Sweden, Lithuania and Poland win top honors in Category 31 of the 2018 AMERICAN ART AWARDS.
This year the American Art Awards (www.AmericanArtAwards.com), juried by the 25 Best Galleries & Museums In America (listed below), had online art images in 50 categories submitted from artists in 59 countries: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Great Britain, Greece, Haiti, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, UK, Ukraine, USA, Venezuela.
The 1st Place to 6th Place winners in all 50 categories will be revealed in the news about a category a day — stretching into November, making this one of the longest winner announcements of any art competition in the world.
STEVE MCCOY
Steve was born in Indianola, Iowa and his attraction to art was the result of growing up in a creative family. As a small boy he remembers watching his mother paint figurines with very small and delicate brushes. He had older brothers that were creative and even though his father was an auto mechanic, he could do amazing creative things with a blow torch and iron.
His oldest brother gave him an oil painting set for Christmas when he was nine years old and that got him started in painting. He is self taught and got his education from reading art books and magazines. He spent 33 years as an illustrator/designer. He has been an Art Director for the Nebraska Medical Center, illustrated 2 medical text books, night Art Director for the Omaha World Herald, had his own design studio and helped with the birth of the Creative Center of Omaha, a post secondary school for the advancement of graphic arts. He served as President of the Graphic Arts Guild in Omaha, Nebraska.
After retiring he decided to return to oil painting. He feels like he is starting all over and is rediscovering the joy of the journey of making art.
He has painted the cover for Arthur Feidler’s Greatest Hits album, a portrait for President Johnson and has numerous drawings and paintings owned by private collectors. He has exhibited in the Upper Mid-West Biannual in North Dakota, one man shows at Joan Kuyper Farver Art Gallery, First Unitarian Church, Gallery at the Village and Edgewater Galleries. He has won awards at the juried shows of the Iowa State Fair and the 107th Des Moines Womens Club Art Show. He has been juried into the National OPA 2016 Juried Salon Show, the NOAPS 26th & 27th Annual Show, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th annual Art of the Heartlands National Exhibition and the 2018 SAAG National Juried Show. First place winner, Artist of the Month Online Competition, Special Merit Award winner of Light, Space & Time Online Art Gallery. NOAPS 2017 international online show.
BIO AND EXHIBITIONS www.annataguti.com annataguti@gmail.com
Anna Taguti (Ekaterina Kozlova) was born in Riga; her father is an artist, Yakov Kozlov, representing the academic school of Russian painting. Her mother’s cousin was Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Shimshelevitz — the second President of Israel. Since the age of 11, she attended the Moscow Arts School of the Moscow State Academic Arts Surikov Institute and then enrolled with the Institute’s Monumental Arts Workshop. In 1984 she became a member of the Moscow Artists Union (Painting Section). Аnna Taguti lives and works in Moscow.
Kozlova Collections
Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia
Museum of Modern Art, Novosibirsk, Russia
Museum of Modern Art, Norilsk, Russia
Museum of «Frans Masereel Centrum», Belgium
Museum of Jewish painters, N.Y. USA
Museum “Erarta”, S-Petersburg, Russia
MIDA (Museo Internazionale Della Donna nell’Arte), Scontrone, Italy
Nominees and Awards (five recent years)
2018 winner THE 2018 AMERICAN ART AWARDS, 1st and 2nd place in the category of “Portrait”
2016 winner of the “History of Inspiration” organized by the magazine “Interior + Design”
2013 nominees of the competition “Revolution in the light”, Moscow, SCOL, project “Braille”.
2012 won Residency at the Rockefeller Foundation, “Book-Window. The Story of a Landscape
View Through The Window”, Bellagio, Italy.
2011 IV Russian competition “The image of the book”, Moscow, 1 Prize for the “artist,s book”
“Book-Window. The Story of a Landscape View Through The Window”.
2008 Symposium, organized by the museum of Oskar Kokoschka, Poechlarn, Austria, Special
jury´s prize KUNST for the project «The Diary of the Creator»
Ildar Galeev — an art critic, curator, publisher, collector, and gallery owner :
In her “Large Portrait” you can see the genre becoming monumental, and nevertheless, we see in “Portrait” even not so many traits of Imperial Roman monumental, how many ancient Greek attraction to the main issues dawn. Here you find both Homeric epos and Aeschylean tragedy, deep contemplations on fatum, relations between God and human, roots of painful feelings, sufferings that there is no way to “cure” this pain.
The whole gallery of this portrait cycle is actually one common portrait repeated like Goldberg Variations. There the main theme is heard and its “branching pathways”; you can hear the choir, but the voices are recorded by a unique performer and then mixed, as it does a sound director when mastering. We shouldn’t be confused by a naming variety for each item of the cycle — the Character remains the same, the creator, who’s taken the guise of his characters. It’s her and nobody else reveals the face of a person in the Portrait, and the face is not a mask, while background and scenery are not the folding screen. “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of sitter” (Oscar Wilde).
Michael Gfeller — diplomat and art collector writes about her art:
“The range of the artist’s creative capacities is very broad: painting, mosaics, unique graphics (hand-made), hand-made serigraphy, a new know-how of working with photographed materials and drawing. This range of capacities is not just a game of mind or experimental interest. Anna Taguti’s works are marked with the urge to make use of the centuries-old experience of the Oriental and Occidental cultures. The combination of images, philosophies, colors, and plasticity of different cultures, as it has survived through the history, is the flesh and blood of her work. Time is an artist, creating non-stop through the centuries. Anna Taguti attempts to save, to freeze this creative action of Time; she aims to catch the intricate interaction of cultures. This is why the methods she employs differ so much”.
CATEGORY 31. PORTRAIT OF SOMEONE FAMOUS
1ST PLACE-TIE STEVEN MCCOY USA steve@mymasterstouch.net “Tasha” (Tasha Tudor)” 18x28" Oil on gessoed Masonite.
1ST PLACE-TIE EKATERINA KOZLOVA RUSSIA www.annataguti.com “Anthony Hopkins” 210x160cm Acrylic charcoal on canvas.
2ND PLACE EKATERINA KOZLOVA RUSSIA www.annataguti.com “Robin Williams” 210x160cm Acrylic charcoal on canvas.
3RD PLACE-TIE RICHARD A. POWELL USA www.RAartPublishing.com “Lupita Nyong’o” 22x30" Ebony pencil drawing.
3RD PLACE-TIE STEVEN MCCOY USA steve@mymasterstouch.net “Naomi (Naomi Watts)” 13x23" Oil on canvas.
4TH PLACE-TIE DAAN VAN DOORN THE NETHERLANDS www.daanvandoorn.com “Philip Glass” 75x140cm Oil on polyester.
4TH PLACE-TIE RICHARD A. POWELL USA www.raartPublishing.com “Erykah Badu” 22x30" Ebony pencil drawing.
5TH PLACE SUSANNE PERSSON SWEDEN http://sussiq.artweb.com “Ingrid Thulin, Actress From The 50’s Elegance Family” 42x59cm Pastel.
6TH PLACE-TIE DANGUOLE SERSTINSKAJA LITHUANIA www.petdrawings.net “Father Valery Rudzinskas Healing Stare” 20x28" Oil on paper.
6TH PLACE-TIE TANYA FILICHKIN USA https://tanyafilichkin.artspan.com/ “American Oxygen / Rihanna” 20x16" Acrylic on canvas.
6TH PLACE-TIE JOLANTA GROCHOLSKA-JANCZARA POLAND jolantagrocholska1@wp.pl “Jim Hendrix” 50x60cm Acrylic.
This year’s 25 Best Galleries & Museums asked to vote on art were:
BEST IN ALABAMA — ALABAMA CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
BEST IN ARKANSAS — FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM
BEST IN CALIFORNIA — REVOLVER GALLERY
BEST IN COLORADO — COLORADO FINE ARTS CENTER AT COLORADO COLLEGE
BEST IN FLORIDA — LIK FINE ART MIAMI + LIK FINE ART KEY WEST
BEST IN ILLINOIS — TRICKSTER ART GALLERY
BEST IN KANSAS — BIRGER SANDZEN MEMORIAL GALLERY
BEST IN KENTUCKY — E&S GALLERY
BEST IN LOUISIANA — NEWCOMB ART MUSEUM
BEST IN MASSACHUSETTS — BOSTON SCULPTORS GALLERY
BEST IN MISSISSIPPI — THE OHR-O’KEEFE MUSEUM OF ART
BEST IN MISSOURI — UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI MUSEUM OF ART AND ARCHEOLOGY
BEST IN NEBRASKA — KIECHEL FINE ART
BEST IN NEVADA — THE METROPOLITAN GALLERY OF LAS VEGAS ART MUSEUM
BEST IN OHIO — LEE HAYDEN GALLERY
BEST IN OKLAHOMA — JOSEPH GIEREK FINE ART
BEST IN OREGON — JORDAN SCHNITZER MUSEUM of ART
BEST IN PENNSYLVANIA — JAMES A. MICHENER ART MUSEUM
BEST IN SOUTH CAROLINA — MARY MARTIN GALLERY OF FINE ART
BEST IN SOUTH DAKOTA — SOUTH DAKOTA ART MUSEUM
BEST IN TEXAS — ART ON 5TH
BEST IN UTAH — THE LEONARDO
BEST IN WASHINGTON — MARYHILL MUSEUM OF ART
BEST IN WEST VIRGINIA — WEST VIRGINIA STATE MUSEUM
BEST IN WISCONSIN — MUSEUM OF WISCONSIN ART
Enter art at www.AmericanArtAwards.com
