ART OF YURI GOLDBERG GEB - Tapa dura

Inspired by the brilliant jeweled tones of Byzantine art and by the works of Faberge, internationally acclaimed Russian artist Yuri Gorbachev creates colorful, richly textured canvases in oil and gold that are widely collected and exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, Gorbachev established a distinguished career as a painter in the Soviet Union before moving to New York in 1991. His whimsical paintings have illustrated Stolichnaya vodka advertisements in hundreds of magazines worldwide, and in 1996 the United nations commissioned an original work from Gorbachev for its "Endangered Species" stamp. This first monograph on Gorbachev presents 100 full color plates spanning the artist's career, while essays offer a lively profile of Gorbachev the man and artist.

Yaroslav Mogutin is a notable young Russian writer and critic of the "post Perestroika" generation; he has edited Russian editions of James Baldwin and William Burroughs.

Ccarey Goldberg is a Boston-based national correspondent for the New York Times. From 1987 to 1995 she covered the former Soviet Union for several major news organizations.