ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrei Kushnir has painted in oils since 1980, with a focus on the American landscape rendered en plein air (painting out of doors). He is well known for his plein-air paintings of the Potomac River and C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) Canal, both near his home in Maryland, but he has painted throughout the United States, particularly Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and Crooked Run Valley; the shorelines of Maine, New York, Cape Hatteras, and Florida's Gulf Coast; Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Arizona; and New Zealand, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. His paintings have been exhibited widely in numerous juried and invitational shows throughout the United States, often selected by judges who were curators at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn Museum, National Gallery of Art, and National Museum of American Art, all in Washington, D.C. The artist's paintings are also in the permanent collections of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture (formerly the Virginia Historical Society); U.S. Coast Guard; University of Maryland University College, College Park; Museum of the Shenandoah Valley; Museum of Florida's Art and Culture; and District of Columbia's Commission of Arts and Humanities, among others. His paintings also hang in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and are in the private collections of former Presidents George W. Bush of the U.S. and Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine. And he also had exhibitions at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, where he was the first living artist accorded such an exhibit; University Club, of Washington, D.C.; Taylor and Sons Fine Art, of Washington, D.C.; Rehoboth (Delaware) Art League; Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, where, in 2016, he was the second living artist accorded such an exhibit; South Florida State College Museum of Florida's Art and Culture, in Avon Park, FL; James Madison University's Duke Gallery of Fine Art; and Capitol Hill Art League, of Washington, D.C.

Kushnir was elected a signature member of the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society, and he is also an elected member of the Washington Society of Landscape Painters in Washington, D.C.; Salmagundi Club, of New York City; Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers Society, of Washington, D.C., where he served as a vice president; and an artist member of Oil Painters of America; Capitol Hill Art League; Blue Ridge Arts Council, of Front Royal, Virginia; and Alexandria and Fairfax, Virginia, Art Leagues. He has also served as an Official U.S. Coast Guard Artist.

Kushnir is the author of nine publications of his work: Painted Boca Grande (2020), Blue Ridge Paintings (2017), Oh, Shenandoah: Paintings of the Historic Valley and River (2016), River Visions (2013), Painted Seasons (2010), Potomac River School (2009), Painted History (2004), American Light, 2001 (2001), and My River (1999). Kushnir's paintings have also appeared in Rock Creek Park (2003) and Along the Potomac: Images of America (2000). Stories about Kushnir's paintings have been heard on Voice of America and been published in The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Register Guard (Oregon), The Nature Conservancy Magazine, The Montgomery Gazette (Maryland), The Longboat Observer (Florida), The Journal (West Virginia), Hill Rag (Washington, D.C.), Highlander Today (Florida), The Gloucester Matthews Gazette Journal (Virginia), The Gasparilla Gazette (Florida), and élan Magazine (Virginia), among others.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Warren R. Hofstra is the Stewart Bell Professor of History at Shenandoah University, where he has been a professor since 1978. In addition to teaching in the fields of American social and cultural history and directing the Community History Project of Shenandoah University, he has published more than fifty papers and written or edited nine books, including "Sweet Dreams": The World of Patsy Cline (University of Illinois Press, 2013), Ulster to America: The Scots-Irish Migration Experience (University of Tennessee Press, 2011), The Great Valley Road: Shenandoah Landscapes from Prehistory to the Present, with Karl B. Raitz (University of Virginia Press, in association with George F. Thompson Publishing, 2010), and The Planting of New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley (Johns Hopkins University Press, in association with the Center for American Places, 2004). His long-term research program focuses on the regional history of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley as a field of inquiry in a large-scale investigation of American capitalism and material culture. He is also engaged in an effort employing immersive technology to present elements of the debate on electing the president at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in a virtual reality format that draws participants into real-time experiential and learning environments and accounts for the creation of the electoral college.