Serge Sorokko
Serge Sorokko is an American art dealer, publisher and owner of the Serge Sorokko Gallery in San Francisco. He played a major role in establishing the first cultural exchanges in the field of visual arts between the United States and the Soviet Union during the period of perestroika. Sorokko is the recipient of various international honors and awards for his contributions to culture.
Early life
Serge Sorokko turned a lifelong interest in art into eponymous fine art galleries selling the work of contemporary artists. He was born in Riga, Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union. His mother was a lawyer and father an architect and art collector, recognized for designing, in the 1960s and 1970s, some of Riga's most prominent public buildings. Sorokko graduated magna cum laude from the Latvian State University in 1977 with an advanced degree in English literature. In 1978, at the age of 24, he emigrated to the United States and settled in San Francisco. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1984.Career
Shortly after his arrival in the US in 1979, Sorokko began work as an art consultant for a San Francisco contemporary art gallery. In 1982, he became co-owner of the Bowles/Sorokko Galleries in San Francisco and, together with his business partner Franklin Bowles, opened a new two floor gallery on Rodeo Drive, in Beverly Hills. The Sorokko galleries, which by 1987 also included a location in New York City, exhibited works by the School of Paris as well as the next generation of European painters including David Hockney, among others.One of Sorokko's main initiatives was advancing the virtually nonexistent public profile of the underground art movement then taking place in the Soviet Union, which included works by expatriates who had relocated to the West, as well as the multitude who remained. With the advent of glasnost, in 1988, Sorokko orchestrated and sponsored an unprecedented return to the Soviet Union of the exiled Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin, for a retrospective exhibition at the Moscow Tretyakov Gallery. It was then that Sorokko met Tair Salakhov, First Secretary of the Union of Soviet Artists. Together with Salakhov, Sorokko has been directly involved with bringing art exhibitions to museum venues in Russia and, in exchange, showing established, but never before seen in the West, Russian artists in his galleries in the U.S.
In 1989, Sorokko was sought out by the Soviet Union's Ministry of Culture, to become its intermediary to the New York art scene, for the first ever exhibition of paintings of contemporary New York artists in Moscow, at the Kuznetsky Most Exhibition Hall. The show, which drew mixed reviews, was curated by Donald Kuspit and entitled "Painting Beyond the Death of Painting."
Publishing
Sorokko’s interest in photography has intensified. Beginning in 2000, the Serge Sorokko Gallery published its first photography portfolio, which benefited the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The portfolio included pieces by well-known contemporary artists. This publishing venture was followed in 2004, by the publication of the BAM Photography Portfolio II. In 2008, Sorokko unveiled the BAM Photography Portfolio III, which showcased original works by twelve contemporary artists.Also in 2008, Sorokko published 10 Iris Prints, a portfolio of photographs by the American fashion designer turned photographer James Galanos.
Awards
• In 2004, the Russian Academy of Arts presented Sorokko with its Medal of Merit for his work in the arts.• In 2005, the government of France recognized Sorokko’s contribution to culture, by bestowing upon him the honor of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.