Art with Friends: The Byrne Gallery Celebrates Its 29th Anniversary with Yuri Gorbachev’s Annual Exhibit

Written by Bill Kent

When Bill Byrne put a Yuri Gorbachev painting in the front window of the Washington Street gallery he owns with his sister Susan, he had high hopes that this work, from an internationally famous artist living in New York City, would be well received in Middleburg. Although Gorbachev’s work is in the Louvre and the Russian National Museum, and has shown in the White House, he was, at the time, unknown in Hunt Country.

Susan and Bill Byrne adored Gorbachev’s highly stylized red and blue prancing horses. For his debut show in Middleburg, Gorbachev selected paintings of fantastic animals reminiscent of those done by Henri Rousseau and Marc Chagall. Some of those animals seemed to float in dreamlike settings; others were fixed in a rural Russian countryside with trees that held up the sky. All were bright, intensely colorful, and uplifting. 

“No one had ever seen anything like it. Yuri’s art had an immediate effect on people.” – Bill Byrne

The Byrnes had been introduced to the artist, a cousin of Noble Prize-winning Russian statesman Mikhail Gorbachev by a mutual friend in 2003. When they met him, Gorbachev stated quite seriously that his one mission in life was to create art that made people happy. He had been on this mission since he was a child in Russia, when, at age 7, he made a horse out of clay. “Horses are magic,” he told the Byrnes. He was working in the United States on an O-1 “genius” visa which allowed him to become an American citizen in 1992 after only one year of full-time residency. 

Minutes after Bill hung the gallery’s first Gorbachev painting in their gallery window, the Byrnes noticed that passersby paused to take second looks. Then they came in. They wanted to know who painted this.

Their first Gorbachev show was a smash hit. “No one had ever seen anything like it,” Bill Byrne remembers. “Yuri’s art had an immediate effect on people.”

Susan has one word to describe that effect. “Exuberance. People look at Yuri’s work and feel uplifted, energized, happy.”

Not only did his paintings sell, but Gorbachev was open, outgoing, and gregarious with collectors. Pennie McKinney and her husband, Rodolfo Ricagno, drove down from Annapolis to attend that first show “and we were just blown away,” she remembers.

Two decades later, McKinney and Ricagno are avid Gorbachev collectors. They’ve been to all 20 of his openings at The Byrne Gallery, including last November’s, and consider him a friend. “Yuri’s work is unique. As an artist, he’s passionate and talented. He loves life and he loves people, and you get that from him when you meet him. When you buy a painting, you get the painting and you get Yuri.” 

Liz Stehm agrees. A resident of Leesburg, she and her husband, Eric Stanley, were in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood when they bumped into Gorbachev on the street. “He recognized us, remembered the painting we had bought, and probably would have spent the day with us if we had had the time,” Stehm remembers.

“We’ve been collecting art for a long time and we’ve gotten to know a few artists and galleries,” Stanley adds. “But there’s no one like Yuri. When you can know an artist, either through their art or personally, you can get a deeper appreciation of how they do things, and that can help you with your own creativity. This is why it’s so important to go to galleries like the Byrne and see art that’s being made by artists right now. It’s a great way to make the world better.”

“Yuri makes his collector base feel like celebrities. Yuri has that sparkle and glamor. He gives that aura to regular people,” shares Susan Byrne. 

Yuri Gorbachev’s current show at The Byrne Gallery is his 21st installment in Middleburg and does more than honor a continuing relationship between artists and gallery owners; it also marks the debut showing of the whimsical “lenticular” paintings of Gorbachev’s friend and fellow Russian Alexander Zakharov. Because Gorbachev’s late mother lived in Odessa, a portion of the sales from his paintings will be donated to the International Rescue Committee for Ukrainian Refugees.

“This is why it’s so important to go to galleries like the Byrne and see art that’s being made by artists right now. It’s a great way to make the world better.” – Eric Stanley

For Susan and Bill Byrne, the show also celebrates the gallery’s 29th anniversary in Middleburg. In that time, they have shown the work of more than 500 artists, most of them local.

“We were introduced to Sheila Johnson by our friend and gallery owner Nadia Stanfield of Birch Tree Fine Art in Middleburg,” Susan Byrne recalls. “We gave Sheila her first show as a fine art photographer and it was very successful. The show was called ‘Visions From My Heart’ and it ran in May 2002.”

Johnson later asked the Byrnes to acquire and hang works of art in all 168 of the Salamander Resort’s guest rooms. “That’s the other side of the gallery that you don’t see at the openings,” says Bill Byrne, who manages the collections of several corporate clients, including Apple, Northrup Grumman, Fannie Mae, and more than a dozen regional and international law firms.

It helped that both Susan and Bill had earlier careers as law firm managers, and that they maintained good relations with their former employers.

“The changes that COVID brought to offices and office work environments have caused nearly every business that has art in its offices to rethink what they want with the art that they have and, in many situations, change their collections. It’s kept me a lot busier than I ever thought I’d be, and it’s made a difference over the years,” Bill Byrne shares. 

Bill and Susan still host Gorbachev when he visits. “The thing he likes to do best when he’s here is to see the countryside. We try to include a long drive around Middleburg before we take him back to Union Station,” shares Bill Byrne. 

“We try to include a long drive around Middleburg before we take him back to Union Station.” – Bill Byrne

Gorbachev confirmed this last month during the exhibit opening. He said that he’s inspired by Middleburg’s “trees. They are special to me, not just because I don’t see so many in New York. When I see them here, they remind me of Europe. They inspire me. I can see them and feel that I am a boy again, at my home.” ML

Published in the December 2024 issue of Middleburg Life.