Constantine Cherkas

Art Brokerage: Constantine Cherkas Russian Artist. Constantine Cherkas is most well known for his watercolor and oil landscapes with figures. Also, known for a series of floral paintings. Constantine Cherkas was born Constantine Cherkasheninoff in Sokol, Russia in 1919. By the age of 9, Constantine was already an accomplished and prolific artist and at 14 he had the good fortune to apprentice under Ila Mashkov, the great the Russian Expressionist. In 1936 Constantine was the youngest artist to ever be accepted into the Moscow Academy for the Fine Arts in the advanced, graduate-level. Cherkas was one of only 30 students to be chosen out of 3,000 finalists in a Russian art competition. Although his work surpassed the other students, it was interrupted when he was captured by the Nazis and forced to work in a prison labor camp during WWII. As soon as the war ended he resumed his passion and was accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and eventually the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 1950, Constantine immigrated to the US with the help of the Tolstoi Foundation and shortened his last name to Cherkas. In 1951, Constantine became friends with fellow Russian painters Nicloai Fechin and Leon Gaspard, who had been living in Taos, New Mexico, and began a life-long interest in capturing the beauty of the the southwest. The artist passed away in 2011. Original paintings wanted. Listings wanted.