RUSSIAN CLASSICS

HANZEN Alexey Vasilievich (1876–1937) Villa by the sea. First third of the XX century. Oil on wood. 35.3 × 45.5

The depicted villa is most likely in Croatia, or maybe even his own villa “Olympia” (named after his wife Olympiada), where the artist spent the last happy years of his life. Alexey Hanzen is a grandson and to some extent a student of Ivan Aivazovsky. As a child, he visited him in his workshop in Feodosia. But he received a professional art education in France and Germany. Hanzen became a successful artist during his lifetime. His paintings were awarded at European salons. The work is accompanied by the expertise of the State Research Institute of Restoration.

POZHIDAEV Grigory Anatolievich (1894–1971) Still life with lobster. Around the 1960s. Canvas, oil. 61.5 × 46.5

The work is expensive, but definitely a masterpiece. An exemplary still life with lobster is one of the favorite subjects in the work of the Russian Parisian Georges A. de Pogédaïeff. The artist emigrated to Europe in 1921, and before that he was known as a theatrical innovator — as an artist of the avant-garde theater. At that time, Pozhidaev came up with defiant costumes — sexy and aggressive. Our still life is France of the 1960s. It seems that the plot is not rebellious, pacified. If not for the color. Charged pulsating red — frantic energy — exemplary Pozhidaev, a godsend for a collector. Expert opinion of the All-Russian Art Scientific and Restoration Center named after I. E. Grabar dated January 19, 2017. Expert: N. A. Shishkina.

RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE

KUDRYASHOV (KUDRYASHEV) Ivan Alekseevich (1896–1972) Space composition. Second half of the 1950s — 1960s. Oil tempera on canvas. 45.3 × 37.3

Let's start with where to start a practical conversation about the Russian avant-garde. The painting, of course, has an expert opinion from the P. M. Tretyakov Research Independent Expertise dated May 28, 2020. Expert: J. V. Rybakova.

Ivan Kudryashov is a real artist of the Russian avant-garde. A student of Kazimir Malevich himself. His Emissary of Suprematism, who was sent from Moscow to Orenburg, then to Smolensk, then to other cities of new Russia, in order to launch branches of UNOVIS and bring the ideas of avant-garde art to the masses.

Where does the space theme come from? Everything is very logical. Ivan Kudryashov is a cosmist; from his youth he was fascinated by the philosophical ideas of Tsiolkovsky. According to some reports, his father worked as a designer for Tsiolkovsky, created drawings of space rockets. And this love for the endless universe Kudryashov carried through his whole life. There is evidence that the artist, already old and crushed by the Soviet regime, took the news of Gagarin's flight with great enthusiasm. And, forgetting the grievances, he asked to restore him to the Union of Artists. How did it happen that he was not there? It's simple. Kudryashov belongs to the “avant-garde stopped on the run” generation. In the 1930s, under threat of reprisals, the authorities banned him from engaging in innovative art, intimidated, forced to sign. And in the end he was still expelled from the union for formalism. A disabled war veteran returned to his cosmic abstractions, which he began to do back in the mid-1920s, already during the Khrushchev thaw. In the last ten years of his life. Ivan Kudryashov's paintings were collected by Kostaki. There is information that he was the favorite of the discoverer of the Russian avant-garde, as well as Clement Redko. The famous collector took several of Kudryashov's works with him to Greece, now they are in the Museum of Thessaloniki. Kudryashov's paintings are also presented in the State Tretyakov Gallery, in the Savitsky Museum in Nukus and in regional museums in Russia.

NONCONFORMIST ART

BELENOK Petr Ivanovich (1938–1991) Eclipse. 1985. Hardboard, ink, author's technique. 83 × 65

It seems that an ominous moon is hanging over the characters of the picture. But no, this is not the moon. The moon looks like this. Before us is a collective image, a fictional celestial body, the reflected light of which is covered either by a satellite or by another planet.

Compositionally and ideologically, I would rank this picture as a masterpiece of catastrophicism. This trend, created by Petr Belenok, is also called panic realism. His main idea is the defenselessness of man in front of the world, the need for flight, the inevitability of an impending catastrophe. And all this is not a drawing, a stage image or a spectacular technique. Catastrophicism was indeed a reflection of the artist's inner state. After moving to Moscow from the nourishing Ukrainian province, in order to engage in independent art instead of portraits of leaders, household comfort almost completely disappeared from Belenok's life. He lived poorly, often from hand to mouth, drank, was ill, died early. But he firmly took his place in the orbit of post-war unofficial art. On a par with Vechtomov, Rabin, Sveshnikov.

RABIN Oscar Yakovlevich (1928–2018) Berre-les-Alpes (Goluaz). 1997. Paper, ball pen, watercolor, author's technique. 21.5 × 28.2 (in light)

Please note that this is not a production graphics — this is an original author's drawing. Rabin of the French period, 1997, therefore Russian inscriptions are mixed with words written in Latin. As often happens, Rabin generously sprinkles riddles. In the central part, a pointer to Nice, to the commune of Berre-les-Alpes with some Alena and René is striking. There is also a crossroads, a place where a lot of cigarettes are smoked. And to the right — chamomile in a jar of chestnut cream. A touching French landscape with Russian angst. And the plane in the sky as a symbol of hope. By the way, have you seen a lot of airplanes in Rabin's drawings? And here is one.

A few words about Rabin for novice collectors. This is the main artist of the Lianozovo group. Organizer of the bulldozer exhibition — a show of independent art, dispersed under Brezhnev in 1974. The riot raised by Rabin was eventually suppressed. But the authorities drew conclusions, made concessions to the artists and, as a result, created a structure that allowed formalists, modernists — in general, all potential “anti-Sovietists” to exhibit. A demonstrative massacre was staged over Rabin. He was dragged for interrogations, arranged for everyday mockery, and in the end deprived of Soviet citizenship.

YAKOVLEV Vladimir Igorevich (1934–1998) Portrait. Late 1970s. Gouache on paper. 52.2 × 41.7

Unusual, but very recognizable Yakovlev’s female portrait. Soft colors, geometric foreground and pleasant airiness. Yakovlev, like Zverev, is the embodiment of a true folk artist. Not in the sense of titles and honors (they just did not exist), but in the sense of people's love and popular recognition. He was an interior artist, out of this world, spent many years in psychiatric hospitals and at the end of his life, in the 1990s, almost completely lost his sight. But so far this is the 1970s — a period of creative heyday. Portrait. Yakovlev. Confirmation of Valery Silaev in the photo, as it was customary to do 15 years ago.