Vyacheslav Kalinin is an artist of the Lianozovo circle. Since the early 1960s, he visited Kropivnitsky and Rabin, communicated with a circle of like-minded people. The first meeting with official art ended in a scandal. In 1962, after showing Kalinin's paintings on a commission at the Moscow Union of Artists, he was expelled from the Abramtsevo school. His first exhibition at the Kurchatov Institute in 1963 (physicists were allowed a little more) was closed on the second day. In general, the normal path of an independent artist in the USSR. The MOSKh commission, after all, saw through him in time — “a non-Soviet man.”

Together with Zverev, he became a symbol of unofficial art. These are still two names that first come to mind: the rebellious Zverev and the quiet, soulful Yakovlev. An artist of a difficult fate. He spent many months in psychiatric institutions. Poorly saw, at the end of his life he almost completely lost his sight. But the sixties and seventies are the peak of the creative form of Vladimir Yakovlev.

Before us is a portrait of the American writer Edgar Alan Poe with the heroes of his works. The author of this picture is the great and terrible Vasily Shulzhenko. A bold, provocative artist, author of the famous canvas “The Kybo”. The heroes of his works, like those of Edgar Allan Poe, are often marginalized, drunkards and phantasmagorical characters. Sharp in his judgement, Vasily Shulzhenko, like Edgar Poe, is often attacked by critics. He is usually blamed for his dislike of the Russian people. Well... this time there is nothing to pick on. There is nothing Russian. Before us is a gorgeous, atmospheric work and a plot that is understandable all over the world, on all continents.

Juniper is one of the two main and most valuable themes in the work of the 1960s artist Ülo Sooster. The artist said that once he dreamed of a mission — to have time to draw 40 thousand junipers. A mystical task. In general, junipers grew in Estonia, in his homeland, on the island of Hiiumaa. But over time, the juniper tree turned into an abstract image — an existential primordial symbol, a reflection of the unconscious. Therefore, Sooster’s junipers almost never form an earthly landscape. This is usually an abstract alien species.

Vasily Shulzhenko. A terrible picture. A mixture of itinerant movement with undiluted existential horror of the level of Edvard Munch and Alfred Kubin. There will certainly be something to think about and something to talk about. The picture is not only with a powerful subtext, but also a virtuoso technical performance. A real old school. Few artists paint like that today.

The 1960s artist from the clip of the first names of unofficial post-war art. Master of Structural Symbolism. Plavinsky was inspired by the achievements of ancient cultures, their symbols and signs. He traveled a lot in the USSR since the late 1950s, walked half the country, studied historical monuments and artifacts of the past. And, admittedly, our big country gave him enough material for difficult experiences. The Russian North was already a land of ruined churches, dilapidated huts and devastation. But what struck fear in an unprepared traveler sometimes became a source of strong emotions for a cosmist and a born artist-researcher.

1996 — the golden period of the famous duo Vinogradov-Dubosarsky, when they split the community of connoisseurs. Some considered them deliberately kitsch artists, almost opportunists to please the tastes of merchants. And they were definitely considered art hooligans. Knowledgeable people, on the contrary, noted the thoughtful conceptual irony of Vinogradov and Dubosarsky and predicted the role of the duo as spokesmen for the spirit of all the 1990s. Now, at a distance, it is clear that they were right.

Works by the 1960s artist Boris Sveshnikov regularly participate in our auctions, but still recall the biography. At the age of 19, he was sent to a prison camp due to slander, for anti-Soviet activities. The “goner” dying of exhaustion was saved by the paramedic Arkady Akimovich Steinberg — the artist of the “Silver Age” and the father of Eduard Steinberg. Perhaps it was precisely that camp horror that gave rise to that very unique imagery in Sveshnikov's work — with monsters, graves, infernal figures. What is called “Kafkaesque romance”.

What do we remember about Krasnopevtsev? This is a special artist — an artist outside the era. According to his quiet philosophical still lifes, no historian can determine that outside is the USSR, the time of “developed socialism”, all around are propaganda slogans and hypocritical films calling for the fight. And you will never think that the author of these inspired paintings works in the Soviet “Reklamfilm”, while he himself dreams of France, is friends with Svyatoslav Richter and George Kostaki and creates works that collectors will hunt for in 50 years.

One of the favorite subjects of the Freudian, the ideologist of psychophysiology in painting, is nude in space. And, of course, the signature technique of the “Russian Morandi” is the immersion of a character or object in an atmosphere cleansed of everything superfluous. This watercolor has it all. The secret of whiteness. “Invisible” colors. Cold silence. And even the model's face in his system should not distract from immersion in this infinity. Weisberg is a phenomenally subtle colorist who works painstakingly and precisely.