The Website

It is with great pleasure that Romanov Gallery presents our new website.  

The plan to launch a reinvigorated digital showcase of our artists and gallery began with discussions in March 2006. Because our catalogue comprises both classically-trained artists and provocative examples of contemporary art our objective was to develop a website disseminating these two artistic persuasions.

Friends and regular visitors will immediately discover that the site enjoys a new look and feel - something conceptually crisp with a clean presentation, and ease of navigation through a comprehensive catalogue. After all, Romanov Gallery has a significant permanent collection and it would be ever so unfortunate to not illustrate it in its entirety.

Attention has been given to preserve the photographic quality of the artworks contained herein. However, nothing can compare to the experience of witnessing our collection in person. Please plan a visit to the gallery so that you can view it in person.

Gallery History

Our name denotes the last imperial dynasty of Russia, a name that is synonymous with quality as much as it speaks to the discerning and stately association with the arts and culture. The Romanovs were second only to the revered Catherine the Great in terms of historic quality of acquisitions in Russia.

The founder and owner of the gallery, Pavlik Stooshnoff, has been in the art world for over forty-five years, including ten years in New York City, and twelve years on London, England’s New Bond Street, before returning to his native Canada to begin a new gallery here. During his tenure abroad and now again in Vancouver he has consulted with major collectors around the world. This includes various heads of state, royal families, international industrialists and young people just beginning their collections with a limited budget.

Mr. Stooshnoff, who speaks Russian fluently, holds a special place in his heart for Russian culture. He frequently travels to Moscow, having established excellent contacts with the artistic community there as well as Russian academics who have connected us to talented artists from that from acclaimed Russian academies. This has also led us to discover Russian-trained artists living in other parts of Eastern Europe, China, Turkey, Cuba, and even Sri Lanka.

We believe that Russia and Eastern Europe represent one of the few places in the world where one can consistently locate original works of exceptional quality at reasonable prices. Russia prides itself as being home to a number of world-renowned art academies, especially those offering curriculum in classical vocation in the style of the masters of the northern European Renaissance. In fact, one of our painters, Alexander Sheversky, hails from the world-renowned Repin Institute in Moscow that is known as the “Harvard” of schools should one wish to procure an education in the likeness of Rembrandt or Vermeer.

With such a rich exposure to an artistic network in both Western Europe and Russia, Romanov Gallery has indefatigable sources upon which we can draw in order to locate prized artworks and particular artists. Should any of our valued collectors be searching for something please let us know and we will find it for you.

Build a legacy today

A recent article published in Good Life Connoisseur magazine, featuring an in-depth look at Romanov Gallery, asked us to discuss what current collectors should seek when making acquisitions.

While the gallery’s focus is on high-end paintings it has also assigned itself the objective of offering collectors original works of art with which to build a legacy. This takes into account art that will speak to the present and to future generations and will represent excellent investment opportunities. Thus a philosophy is followed that runs much deeper than quality offerings of art.

Most would believe that only artists such as the Picassos, Chagalls, and Klimts, to name but a few, are those who sustain and increase their values. “It is certainly true that the Old and recent masters represent the ‘blue chip’ investments in that their value is secured and accrues sharply from one’s initial purchase,” says Kelvin Beaudette, Director of Romanov Gallery, “but the extraordinarily high costs associated with these acquisitions and their relatively minimal offerings do not make it a reality for most.” Romanov Gallery insists that high quality art that can increase its value in the present and for future generations is available now with current artists. Beaudette posits this idea: “It is better to invest in a first-rate painting from an artist whose work both moves you and offers the ongoing excitement of watching their careers flourish than a third-rate painting from a well-known ‘master’ whose namesake impresses more than the artwork itself.”

As such Romanov Gallery has aligned itself with a collection of artists whose works will continue to resonate for the collectors and their families. And for values that are reasonable, leaving the necessary room for the collection to grow.

Our catalogue is a carefully furnished exhibit of important artists today who are making themselves known around the world. Consider four artists who illustrate exceptional acquisitions, offering beautiful original works, and a trajectory of good investment for today and the future.

This includes two classically-educated painters: the breathtaking work of Alexander Sheversky, whose comprehension of the interplay of light and shadow speaks to his vocation in the discipline of his icons, Rembrandt and Vermeer. His masterful classicist technique gives way to a more contemporary predilection on his canvases. With his education in Botticelli and Russian masters the silent dramaturgy of Xue Yanqun’s Renaissance-inspired portraiture is expressed in radiant colours that excites as much as it invites meditation.

Our most recent offerings in modern art include the inimitable Andrei Tsoy who utilizes an abstract-representational medium. Given to influences stemming from literature, empire and monarchical pretensions, and classical civilization, Tsoy’s mixed media work embodies the idea of cultures and ideologies of convergence, presented in an academic yet free-form manner. And Alexander Melnikov is a painter of bold, endearing figurative works that belie the usual concepts of portraiture. This scholar’s fascination with late Medieval works lends him a two-dimensional yet modernist perspective for his subjects, wrought with symbolism, conferring pathos and beauty in his haunting figures.

These artists ably follow our outgoing philosophy: a carefully nurtured collection marrying the spirit of Old World masters with contemporary relevance, thus an outlook that honours traditional integrity while appealing to modern sensibility. This renders them as fine examples of legacy-building in one’s own private collection.

Stately and timeless. This is the concept behind Romanov Gallery’s outlook. An acquisition that considers inheritance and thus attests to inter-generational value and prestige. “For us the value of art is ascertained by one’s falling in love with it, as well as being determined by the legacy it leaves,” says Pavlik Stooshnoff, the owner of the gallery with 45 years of experience as an art dealer, “and we are ambitious in meeting this!” Adds Beaudette, “It is better to acquire a superlative Sheversky or Tsoy than a second-rate Chagall for six figures because, at a fraction of the cost, one is left with room to add invest further; our client’s are elated at the prospect of watching the development of young masters in the making, knowing that the possibility of adding subsequent masterpieces to their collection is made more real by the immediate value they receive.”