NAIVE ART

PURYGIN Leonid Anatolyevich (1951–1995) The Sacrifice of Venus. 1980s Canvas, oil. 85 × 57.5

At the bottom of the canvas there is a characteristic signature and title: “Painted by Lenya Purygin from Nara a picture of the Sacrifice of Venus”. Russian Bosch. Leonid Purygin. Or “Lenya Purygin the Genius”, as he later wrote. In Nara, in Naro-Fominsk, in the local palace of culture there was a drawing circle, which became all Purygin's universities. The artist is loved and appreciated as a creator of amazing fairy-tale worlds, where good magic neighbors with hellish images. This is not posturing, not a calculated reception for the sake of the audience's goodwill. The images of Purygin were born from the depths of the subconscious. And he had a very difficult fate. At the age of 19, he opened his veins for the first time and survived clinical death. Psychiatric hospitals, difficult periods came one after another. But at the same time, at the age of 21, in 1972, his first paintings-stories appeared. Of these, Pipa, Cosmo-woman, Venus, butterflies were subsequently born. Purygin lived a very short life. But fate only gave him the opportunity to bask in the first rays of recognition. In 1988, Purygin's paintings were sold at the first and last Moscow Sotheby's. On the wave of success and interest from Western collectors, he soon left to work in America. Not for long. It didn't work out there. He returned to Russia. And in 1995, he suffered a heart attack. Purygin was 44 years old. His auction records began 10 years after the death of the artist. In particular, in 2007 his painting “The Self-immolation of a Lion” was sold in England for $ 177,000.

Today, collectors hunt for the paintings of a self-taught artist from Nara. His paintings are a rarity on the market. And any opportunity to buy authentic things should not be missed, of course. The authenticity of the work is confirmed by the conclusion of the expert Valery Silaev.

1960s UNOFFICIAL ART

NEMUKHIN Vladimir Nikolaevich (1925–2016) Composition with cards. 2007. Canvas, pencil, acrylic, collage. 80 × 80

Black Nemukhin from the collection of the family of heirs. A large, almost meter long, spectacular work with a rare dark background. Card solitaire is a successful and very popular theme among Nemukhin collectors. We can say that it is his classics in a rare performance. Vladimir Nemukhin is one of the first row of artists of unofficial post-war art. A member of Lianozovo group, he participated in the Bulldozer exhibition, in the Izmailovo exhibition, in the “Beekeeping” and many others. The work is accompanied by an expert report — a ready collectible and investment option.

ZVEREV Anatoly Timofeevich (1931–1986) Don Quixote and a windmill. 1971. Hardboard, oil. 40 × 32.5

Don Quixote is an important and very personal theme in Zverev's art. The artist was very fond of Cervantes' novel and in his heart he also imagined himself as “the knight of the sad image”. And why not? The life of an unofficial artist in the USSR was very much like a clumsy struggle with windmills. In order to survive in an unfriendly world, the loner Zverev had to use social camouflage — to hide behind the image of a marginalized fool. At any moment Zverev could be taken to the police, beaten or even imprisoned for parasitism. In 1971, he did not even yet have the saving “crust” of the City Committee of Graphics, which would have kept him away from the article. Only at the end of the 1970s did Nemukhin help him make a certificate, giving him the formal right to be called an artist. So Zverev's Don Quixote is a separate tragic novel, not just an illustration of Cervantes.

ZVEREV Anatoly Timofeevich (1931–1986) Cliff on the seashore. 1961. Paper, gouache, watercolor. 43.5 × 62

Early Zverev. 1961. From the collection of Claude Day (France). The piece for a connoisseur. For someone who understands its rarity. It is known that few works by Zverev of the late 1950s and early 1960s have survived in Russia. They were taken out by Western correspondents, diplomats, cultural figures. Back returned only a small part, which was bought at foreign auctions. The romantic landscape “Cliff on the seashore” is accompanied by the conclusion of Valery Silaev. The expert's verdict is of museum value.

ZELENINE Edouard Leonidovich (1938–2002) Abstract composition. 1970s. Oil on canvas. 60 × 50

Zelenine is a sixties artist. He exhibited at the progressive cafe “Blue Bird”. In 1974, after the Izmailovo exhibition, Zelenine received a boorish review in the “Evening Moscow”. In 1976, Zelenine left for France. His paintings were exhibited by European galleries, and his works were brought to the United States by Alexander Glezer as part of the exhibitions of the “Museum of Russian Contemporary Art in Exile”. In 1988, after the beginning of Perestroika, Zelenine had his personal exhibition in Novokuznetsk. In the same year the Post of the USSR issued a stamp with his picture “Lady in the Hat”. Zelenine died in 2002. His friend the artist Valentin Vorobyov wrote that Zelenine took a lethal dose of sleeping pills at the age of 64. And eight years later his paintings began to break records at Sotheby's and other leading world venues.

The painting comes from the collection of Alexander Reznikov, participated in the exhibition in Venice in 2012 and is published in the catalog on page 115.

1970s UNOFFICIAL ART

TITOV Vladimir (1950) Dinner on the grass. 1997. Oil on canvas. 70 × 108

The painting can be considered our answer to Édouard Manet's “The Luncheon on the Grass”. Instead of dry French decadent eroticism, there is a Russian riot of emotions, clarifications of “who is who” and “look what I can do”. Vladimir Titov is an artist of the seventies, a student of the home academy of Vasily Sitnikov (Lanternman). But instead of the aestheticism of Vasily Yaklich, he went for grotesque naturalism. His characters are marginalized, vagrants, drunks and their girlfriends. For an unprepared viewer, they give the impression of the inhabitants of the Gorky bottom. But this is only at first. Titov, fortunately, does not operate with reproaches and does not set educational goals. This is a private, very peculiar and independent view of life. The viewer is free to agree or not.

“Dinner on the Grass” is an optimistic, upbeat piece. Summer, the beach. The men are fooling around. To the obvious delight of their compliant girlfriends. The sun is setting, mosquitoes are on their way, and they're not wearing pants, and the fun is in full swing. A moody, groovy picture, very typical for Titov. And if this author is not already in the collection, then “Dinner on the grass” is an excellent opportunity to close this gap.