Orthodox Icon Art Art by Tatiana V. Romanova-Grant
In Loving Memory – July 27, 1947 + April 30, 2017
Tatiana V. Romanova-Grant was born and raised by a family of scientists in Moscow. She studied at the Moscow Institute of Fine and Applied Arts ”Stroganovskoe” and graduated from the Moscow Krupskaya Pedagogical Institute. She was a very active member of the Moscow artistic community, and was quite successful as an artist.
For several years she worked as an artist-scenographer at the Moscow Mayakovsky Academical Theatre and several independent drama and musical theatres in Moscow, creating staging and costume designs. During this time period she also was very active in cinema, scenography, and advertising, and worked as an illustrator for various publishing houses in Moscow. She was a designer for the Drama Studios of Moscow Central TV, and also taught art and language.
In 1974 she began to study the restoration of ancient art, working with the masters at the Grabar Restoration Center in saving and bringing to life icons from the 13th to 18th century. She also began restoring tempera icons and frescoes for the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as individual collectors.
Her restoration work led to painting new icons, and she learned from masters in monasteries as well as her study of ancient church writings. “I have always been a believer,” said Tatiana. “It so happened that I was working on a team doing restoration of old icons, paintings, and frescoes. There were lots of things that needed painting, sometimes fragments, and sometimes whole paintings. The Metropolitan saw my work and pushed me to paint the icons for the church.”
Since then she has been commissioned to create many new works by collectors and churches throughout Russia, France, England, South America, Asia, and the United States.
Tatiana Romanova-Grant uses ancient traditional techniques rooted in Byzantine, Middle Age, and Renaissance art. For her icons she uses specially cut wood, and works highly professionally with 24K gold leaf for backgrounds and sophisticated gold line graphics.
In addition to icons and frescoes, Tatiana also is a master at the rare art of creating traditional icon eggs. These rare eggs have been displayed in museums and exhibitions throughout the world. She also has produced many award-winning miniatures, some of which have been reproduced as popular Christmas cards.