Meter-sized, powerful, museum-level! Mammoth in the world of “Super Elephants”! A giant standing in the water, constructed of suprematic blocks, is one of the most recognizable subjects in Nemukhin's work.

Before us is one of the most significant works by Nemukhin ever sold at world auctions. And even more so in Russia. Undoubted masterpiece. Expert Valery Silaev considers it among the best of those that he had to attribute. By the way, long ago in 2006, a similar work of the same time, size and theme was sold at Sotheby's for $ 240,000 and set an auction record for the artist's work, which has not been beaten up to this day.

Yuri Kuper came to sfumato, a painterly technique of depicting air invented by Leonardo, while in exile, where he left in 1972. In the Soviet Union, he was more of a follower of surrealism. But one day his photographer friend John Stuart told him, “Look, you're a fine artist, but you're doing some nonsense. Why don't you just paint reality? Those objects around you”. And from about this point we can count the era of the new Kuper.

Vasily Yaklich, or Vasya the Lanternman, as he was called by those who were on a short footing with him, is a legend of unofficial art. Seemingly a simple sitter and operator of diapositive display at the Surikov Institute, Vasily Sitnikov was a very influential figure in the world of unofficial art.

Evgeny Rukhin had a reputation not only as one of the most daring nonconformists, but also as one of the most commercially successful artists of “dip-art”. The young member of the Lianozovo group and participant of the Bulldozer exhibition lived a very short life. Only 33 years. Rukhin's undeniable talent and his early tragic death made the artist a legend of unofficial post-war art.

Among the striking effects of Krasnopevtsev's “Wrapped Bowl” is the change in brightness and tonality depending on the angle from which you look at it. If you look straight ahead, the composition seems a little darker, but if you move half a step, the colors become brighter. There may be a scientific explanation for this: the paint lies intricately within the textural structure of the hardboard and the light is reflected differently. But the effect is truly mystical.

“Cat with a Bird” is one of the most poignant subjects of Vladimir Yakovlev. In a cat catching a bird, the audience rightly saw a metaphor for the defenselessness of a living being in a harsh world, the cruelty of the confrontation between predator and victim. The subject in itself is philosophical and complex. And in the execution of the mentally ill artist, it acquired a special depth and drama.

Yury Annenkov is an artist of Russian avant-garde, an experimentalist, an innovator of portrait genre. Images of Trotsky, Meyerhold and Akhmatova, which first come to mind for many, belong to his hand. Annenkov is one of the most expensive Russian artists. In the auction ranking, he takes 19th place with a result of 6.3 million dollars for the “Portrait of Alexander Nikolaevich Tikhonov”, sold at Christie's in 2014.

Works of the inventor of “panic realism” can be very different in their technical complexity. Some “quick” graphics works are done very succinctly, literally in a single pass. Technical stinginess is also characteristic of many paintings by Petr Belenok. But that is not the case today.

Rare in mood Belenok. The inventor of “panic realism” suddenly turned to a warm, optimistic plot, even if not without a slight melancholy. The author's title is “Sheer Joy”. Where did this come from? One might speculate. The year of 1987 was a time of hope and optimism.