At the Veranda

Isaac Brodsky and Basil Yakovlev, whose works presented at the Institute of Russian Realist Art, were the teachers of Alaxey Gritsay. Also in the collection of the museum storage are works of his students – Viktor Ivanov, Alexander Gritsay and Dmitry Zhilinsky.
Alexey Gritsay graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Leningrad. His graduation work "The Presentation of the State Land Use Act" was not very successful. However, even at that time, the examination committee was greatly impressed by Gritsay’s landscape studies for the finished work. Konstantin Yun described the young artist as "possessing an undeniable sense of nature." His words were prophetic: Gritsay eventually became a great master of small-scale landscapes. This painting was created in the post-war years, when Alexey Gritsay lived with his family in the village of Priluki on the Oka River. He depicts the veranda of a summer house infused with gentle sunshine and dappled with bright splashes of light. As it penetrates through the dense foliage, the diffused light creates a feeling of smooth, almost imperceptible, continuous motion.

House with veranda, shown in the picture, does not belong Gritsai, but to the artist Andrey Tutunov. This work was made at his country house Priluki, as it is said in the inscription on the back of the picture. In fact, stay in this house Gritsay mentions in his painting "Evening at the House of the artist Tutunov", written a decade later.