Oleg Kushnirskiy is a New York-based collector of Russian icons and a professional photographer. Born into a Jewish family in Khmelnytskyi (Ukraine), he moved to Leningrad at a young age, where he worked as a photographer for private collectors and museum institutions, including the State Hermitage Museum.

In 1992, Kushnirskiy immigrated to the United States. In New York, he continued his work as a professional art photographer and opened the "Russian Heritage Store" in Chelsea’s Antique Center, building a successful business.

Oleg Kushnirskiy is well-known within the close-knit community of collectors and museum professionals. He collaborates with renowned auction houses and galleries in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries, and is closely connected with the most influential figures in this field. Together with his son, Ilya Kushnirsky, he founded the art logistics company Fine Art Shippers and the lifestyle magazine 300magazine.

In the 1980s, Kushnirskiy undertook several research expeditions across the North and East of Russia. In old Russian villages and towns, in ruined or crumbling churches, and wooden houses, he, along with other collectors, found and saved invaluable works of religious art from oblivion. It was during this time that Kushnirsky became fascinated by the aesthetics of late Russian iconography, with its incredibly multifaceted, colorful, and festive compositions and miniature paintings, characteristic of the Old Believer centers in the Vladimir region. It was also during this period that his first icon collection began to take shape, which, however, he had to leave behind in Russia when he moved to New York.

A special iconographic scheme of The Resurrection—the Descent into Hell, the so-called “polnitsa,” was developed in Palekh in the late 18th century. This iconography gained great popularity in the 19th century as it included the full cycle of the main events of the liturgical year, and for Kushnirskiy, it became one of his favorite themes, forming the foundation of his collection. The collection also includes various depictions of the Virgin Mary — “Unexpected Joy,” Tikhvin, and Feodorovskaya with narrative cycles, as well as filigree hagiographic icons — the Great Martyr Catherine, Alexius the Man of God, the Prophet Elijah, and many others.

Oleg Kushnirskiy’s collection brings together unique examples of Russian religious art. The so-called “late” icons, which comprise this collection, had long remained a little-studied area of Russian art. However, with the advent of the 21st century, this situation began to change. The late icon, created from the 17th to the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, has become the subject of close study by researchers. In this sense, Oleg Kushnirsky’s collection is of particular scholarly interest, a fact often noted by experts in iconography. It allows one to trace the path that late Russian iconography followed over two and a half centuries, particularly in the example of The Resurrection—the Descent into Hell theme. It also shows how iconography, including Old Believer art, responded to the major styles arriving in Russia — Baroque and Classicism — while preserving and maintaining ancient iconographic traditions. It is even more remarkable that this collection was entirely formed abroad.

Having dedicated many years to his collection, Oleg Kushnirskiy, like any collector, dreamed of making it accessible not only to a small circle of friends and specialists but to the broader public. One of his main goals has been to popularize Russian icons among Western audiences and to exhibit the works in museums, galleries, and university exhibition halls.

Oleg Kushnirskiy’s dream has already been partially realized. Since 2015, the Russian Icon Collection project has been active, through which the icons he collected were scientifically analyzed and cataloged. In 2023, a Russian-language catalog titled Russian Icons from the Second Half of the 17th to the Early 20th Century: The Collection of Oleg Kushnirskiy was published. The book presents the artistic heritage of the icon-painting villages in the Vladimir region — Palekh, Mstera, Kholuy, as well as Old Believer communities in Guslitsy and Vetka, and workshops in Central Russia. The catalog includes detailed iconographic descriptions, stylistic analyses, and introductory essays written by prominent art historians and experts in this field: Anna Ivannikova (State Hermitage), Wendy Salmond (Chapman University, California), Alek D. Epstein (Moshe Castel Museum, Israel). In 2023-2024, the collection’s catalog was presented in museums in several Russian cities — Moscow, St. Petersburg, Veliky Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Uglich, and Palekh. The catalog is also housed in the collections of more than 60 libraries across Russia, from Moscow to Vladivostok.

An English-language version of the catalog, supplemented by articles from iconography specialists from the State Russian Museum, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the Museum of Russian Icons in Moscow, and the Andrei Rublev Museum of Ancient Russian Art and Culture, is currently in print.

In addition, Russian Icon Collection is working on a digital exhibition of icons from Oleg Kushnirskiy’s collection. Aimed at exploring whether an icon can be considered in the context of digital art, the project will open in the spring of 2025 at the Naum Knop House Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina.