Of course, one would love to see Garikow's artistic output from his time spent at the Academy, but his educational records were unfortunately lost during the World War II Nazi invasion, evacuation and destruction of the school. The documents from this time period were never recovered, even though The Academy was rebuilt and functions as the largest arts education institute in Russia today. It is reasonable to assume that in Europe today; specifically Salzburg, Austria and Leningrad, Russia, there are Garikow originals hanging on walls.

Even though Garikow's time at the Academy goes undocumented, his exposure to Repin's aesthetics during his time of study highly influenced his own artistic output and can be clearly observed in his oeuvre.

Ilya Repin was the most famous and most prominent artist to attend the Academy, and he was praised by becoming the school's namesake due to his adherence to a highly nationalistic style that consisted of portraits and Russian nationalist propaganda during a time of rebellion against the Russian Empire by both artists and Communist politicians alike. Repin lived from 1844 to 1930, and even though he lived during the time of artistic innovators such as Paul Cezanne and the Impressionists like Camille Pissaro, Edgar Degas, and Claude Monet, among many others, Repin's style did not evolve nor stray from his own academic renderings. In other words, he did not make steps toward developing a more Modern and Expressionistic output; he did not experiment with his work at all.

	#0102

As Repin was "steeped in the past" and adhered to what he knew, years later Ivan Garikow remained more closely aligned with older styles like that of Repin than the emergence of Modernism and Contemporary art during his own lifetime which he spent in Russia, Austria, and the United States, and he likely experienced the different art scenes in all three locales (Brinton 520). This makes sense, given Garikow's exposure to the Repin Academy at the developmental age of eighteen, as even today, the Saatchi Gallery website describes the role that the Repin Academy plays as that of "a key part in the preservation of [Russia's] native style" (Saatchi). Garikow was schooled to maintain the style of the past and not to divert his artistic efforts, and one can guess that his success in the Academy depended upon his commitment to this pledge. A Garikow painting such as #0102, a portrait of a blonde woman, recalls the Repin painting Fisher Girl, 1874. Both female figures are painted with their heads turned down to the left. Their pale features and blonde hair are complemented by dresses of bluish-gray, and they leave the viewer in a pensive mood, wondering why the figures seem to look moody or sad, and what they are thinking about so intently. One can see that while Garikow did not outright copy Repin, the influence of the elder artist came through subconsciously in pose, theme, and mood, in the younger's work.

After he completed his classical art training at The Academy, Garikow worked briefly as an artistic decorator of sorts for some type of theatrical production company. Immigration papers indicated his occupation as an interior decorator which is undoubtedly an error in translation as there is photographic evidence that Garikow's past included stage plays and musical productions with scenery. This would indicate he was a scene or set designer for the performing arts. Unfortunately, he was residing in a small city too close to Leningrad. It was during this time that Hitler's army had invaded Russia and the siege of Leningrad began. Garikow lost the job that his art training helped him to acquire but not secure. He was taken as a prisoner of war by the Nazis and moved by force to a concentration camp where he would remain a POW for the next four years.

One can imagine the trauma young Garikow experienced as he was forced to surrender his life of freedom because of reasons far beyond his comprehension and his control. One could argue that for a vulnerable person, only 23 years old, living without his family, the catastrophic Nazi siege had left a lasting negative impact on his life. A sense of non-permanence, and at times, even nihilism must have pervaded Garikow's life, affecting not only his relationships with others (keeping them at arms' length), but also his perception of his own self-regard. He may have began to doubt his abilities and his own agency when his individuality and dignity was stripped from his essence thus weakening his self image, his self esteem and his self worth. He questioned the potency of a world where anything and everything could be taken away, often violently, at any given moment.

#0015

Along with significant personal experience, world views also bleed their way into artistic output as well, and the most prevalent subject matter in Garikow's work consists of the portrait: in depth analyses of the individual, many times unsuspecting and unaware, as if painted by an observer in the shadows. Garikow felt some kind of affinity for the person, be it male or female, who was alone and existing in the privacy of their domestic setting. Many times he painted women brushing their hair, unaware of the gaze of the male artist like Untitled #0015. Here, Garikow's presumed study of French painters, specifically Pierre Bonnard who painted his wife countless times at her toilette, becomes a meaningful comparison. Perhaps Garikow craved that unselfconscious peace of individuals simply going about their day a free spirit and of their own free-will--something that had been taken from Garikow earlier in his life; but one thing is certain: Garikow never gave up his impulse to create, and one can infer, his own small hope, perhaps his only hope, in the power of art, for it was art that saved his life.

In the concentration camp, Garikow believed with a certainty that he would be executed along with hundreds of other Slavic POW's. He told his son, Arnold, that he asked for a piece of charcoal from the officer-in-charge, and he used this charcoal to compose a piece of Christ on the cell wall. Because of that portrait, Ivan's life was probably saved. After all, Hitler appreciated fine art and was an artist himself. The officer decided to spare Garikow's life and sent him not to the gas chamber but to a compulsory labor camp possibly under the direction of Frank Zeireis. Not much is known of this time, as Garikow never wanted to discuss it with his family, but fortunately, Garikow eventually was rescued from this labor camp by United States allied troops in 1945, and then placed near Salzburg, Austria for his own safety.

It was in Salzburg that Garikow gained popularity and recognition as one of the town's most loved artists. The post war years were good to Garikow. His reputation as an artist grew quickly, and with his success he regained his self esteem and self worth. After years of a wavering fate caused by the horrors of being held captive, never knowing if it was to be his last day alive, Garikow turned to the one thing he knew how to do - his painting. Life was never better than it was for Ivan Garikow in Salzburg, Austria during the late 1940s. In addition to his growing reputation as an artist, he fell in love, got married, and became a father. Convinced he was destined to be rich and famous; Garikow immigrated to the United States and entered at Ellis Island in 1951.

Even though Garikow moved to USA, his style in painting remained its distinctly Russian character. He lived in close proximity to Charles Demuth (Lancaster, PA), the Precisionist painter who immortalized Modernist poet William Carlos Williams in his famous piece, The Figure 5 in Gold, in 1928, and since Garikow worked at Newmans Galleries in Philadelphia, one can assume he was at least aware of the experimental and progressive path that art before and after WWII had taken. Garikow's closet friend was fellow Russian artist, Vladimir Shatolow who also found employment at Newmans Galleries. Shatalow urged Garikow to experiment with his art; however, like a true Repin Academy graduate, Garikow clung to the traditional lessons from his formal training and embraced his nationalist style and did not diverge into the path of Modern Art.

	#0105

Perhaps a sense of homesickness was cured by keeping the tradition of Russian painting alive in his own work. Perhaps Garikow, after having survived so much uncertainty and tumult in his own life, longed for what he felt was a simple, uncomplicated, and good life. Derivative and unoriginal, yes, but his body of work presents a consistent, stable collection of paintings that seem to be on a quest to show calm individuals, going about the business of their daily lives. Of course, there are also paintings showing the instance of turmoil - one thinks of Untitled # 0105 (Man in Red Cloak), perhaps inspired by Frank Zeireis, the Nazi Commandant who may, in Garikow's mind, represent the epitome of evil - an evil so dark that he never forgot his face and the atrocities of the concentration camps under his command. It is logical that Garikow's art work served as a type of therapy or self counseling for Garikow as he was forced to work through his issues from his dark days as a Nazi prisoner. Garikow never did exorcise his demons from that period of his life which may have added to his despair, paranoia and his death in 1982.

Mack, the head of the Eurisko Art Foundation, discovered almost the entirety of Russian artist Ivan Garikow's life works in a storage shed in Florida in July, 2004. Of the estimated 235 works Garikow completed during his lifetime, Eurisko holds and maintains approximately 190 of those pieces. Eurisko believes there is a special value in keeping an almost complete physical catalogue raisonne of any single artist intact, and they are proud to sponsor The Garikow Collection, especially in light of his personal history that begins on a small rural farm in Russia and eventually spans to the United States, a symbol of survival and hope in the twentieth century.

After six years of ongoing and continuing research, interviews, collaborations, and simply spending time with the collection, Mack and his associates at Eurisko find themselves eager to present the Garikow collection to the art community and to get one step closer to finding a permanent home for the Garikow art collection. The consistency of style and subject matter in Garikow's body of work is astounding. Amazing as it seems, all of this work has remained unseen by the public since its creation although he was listed in Davenport's Art and Reference Price Guide in 1992. Eurisko has created a website with the hope that it will allow the art world access to learn more about Ivan Garikow, the man, and his art. Visit the online gallery of Garikow's art collection.

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