How a Ukrainian immigrant creates flowers that have conquered the White House and Dior

Vladimir Kanevsky, an immigrant from Ukraine to the USA, makes fragile porcelain flowers that are almost impossible to distinguish from real ones. Today his works are sold in Europe and America, and elegant peonies, tulips and lilies of the valley adorn the interior of fashion designer Valentino and the showcase of the Dior fashion house.

Photos from the personal archive of Kanevsky

The story of the sculptor, who created himself, told the publication HIS.

Vladimir Kanevsky was born in 1951 in Kharkov, where he spent his youth and youth. In this city he received an architectural education and even worked for several years - in 1970 he designed residential areas of his native city. Then he moved to Leningrad and designed public buildings there. Once, when Vladimir was already working at the Architectural Museum, he was offered to decorate a Nectar shop window. Here he first tried himself in the modeling of ceramics. Then the master did not know that this passion will change his life. At the end of 80, when Kanevsky was on the verge of his 40 anniversary, the architect decided to immigrate to the USA.

The last years of Vladimir's stay in the Union were associated with sculpture, so the first serious purchase on the new continent was a kiln for ceramics. The truth about the large-scale works, Vladimir had to forget. In a foreign country, without connections and finances (in the pocket at the time of arrival there was only $ 300), he took on any work that could bring quick money.

Photo: Instagram / vladimir.kanevsky

The first client was the owner of the New York shop, where artists and artists looked. After each of their visits to an enterprising American, there were less and less flowers in the window, and more orders came to Vladimir. Thus, the demand for the manufacture of porcelain flowers, which in the interior served as artificial (their expensive version), but looked no worse than natural, gradually grew.

“I really needed the money,” he explains in an interview. - Porcelain flowers were easier to sell than, for example, a sculpture. Here I sculpted them. Sculpted and hated.
Soon the architect was in the past, but the sculptor in the present opened a small porcelain workshop. The first serious customer of flowers was the Paris showroom of the Dior fashion house, after which orders for porcelain lilies and peonies just fell down, and famous American designers and collectors also began to drop by the workshop to Vladimir. In addition to flowers, Kanevsky created vases, pots and vessels, painted everything independently and manually. Then Vladimir came to the line in 50 years, and his career was just beginning to gain momentum.

Photo: Instagram / vladimir.kanevsky

You can tell a lot about the success of the Ukrainian immigrant. In one interview, the sculptor admitted that he himself did not expect such popularity. Buyers did not hide their enthusiasm from the products, and Vladimir continued to contempt for flowers, considering his true vocation to sculpture as a kind of “real art”.

The fact that the world famous house of porcelain Meissen invited me to create the author's collection of Kanevsky became a turning point in his work. Then the master realized that what he likes to do (sculpture compositions) is not demanded by the market, and the unloved form of creativity - porcelain flowers - is very much appreciated.

Photo: Instagram / vladimir.kanevsky

It so happened to find the perfect balance between the demands of the market and your own desires and finally fall in love with flowers. Now his works are in private collections of the descendants of Jacqueline Kennedy, Martha Stewart, Tommy Hilfiger, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, Princess Gloria von Thurn.

Photo: Instagram / vladimir.kanevsky

And one of the roses of the sculptor even attracted the first lady of the USA Melania Trump.

"I made her (rose) for a joint project with a German porcelain factory Meissen. I created vase designs and flower samples for the factory's artists. The rose was such an example. It stood for a long time, and I did not sell it, although there were clients. When the White House contacted us, there was nothing suitable at hand, so I took the rose and put it in order,” Kanevsky said.

The first lady presented this rose to the wife of the head of the Japanese government, Akie Abe, during her visit to the White House.

Today Kanevsky 67 years, the cost of one "flower work" is estimated at tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he jokingly assures that he just recently remembered: botany was his favorite subject from school.

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