084 http://www.AmericanArtCollector.com
UPCOMING SHOW PREVIEWhaving had the wonderful opportunity to
paint ‘en plein air’ in his Giverny gardens
and lily pond, I re-created this joyful
memory which is close to my heart.”
Pavel Sokov pays homage to artist
Alphonse Mucha with a portrait of Mucha
that was done “as a nod of respect.” Sokov
says, “It started when I was in Tokyo in 2017.
I had the extreme luck of being able to see
the Slav Epic in person, which left Prague
for the first time ever and came to Tokyo at
the exact time I was there. I knew the show
would be fantastic, but I didn’t think it was
going to blow me away and make a perma-
nent impression. When I saw these works,
I realized it was no wonder they are called
epics. They were truly epic. The scale, the
storytelling, the complicated composition
and the emotional impact they make blew
me out of the water. One piece particu-
larly, Apotheosis of the Slavs History, had
the distinction of being the only artwork
that made me tear up a little bit. This was
in response to how Mucha absolutely
dominated his objective of representing a
brief history and the spirit of Slavs in one
single image, in a way that I didn’t think a
single two-dimensional image is capable
of doing. It felt like artists these days don’t3 45