“Here's to twenty years of no-exhibition work!” This was the toast to Evgeny Mikhnov-Voitenko in November 1976, after the exhibition of nonconformists at the Ordzhonikidze Culture Center. Colleagues understood that by objective, unbiased assessment they were drinking to the health of one of the main innovators of abstract art. But formally — yes, it was indeed the first exhibition of Mikhnov.

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.

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.

One and a half meter Steinberg of amazing beauty and the highest museum level. This is a classic subject for one of the main representatives of the second avant-garde. The laconic language of Suprematism, a dialogue with Malevich, but at the same time a very special aestheticism. No wonder one of his first teachers was “Petrovich” — Boris Petrovich Sveshnikov.

Andrey Grositsky was an artist in the orbit of unofficial art. He was called the “poet of things”. For Grositsky, not only aesthetics was important, but also the spirit of the object. The metaphysics of the object world remained his field of research throughout his life. He transformed shovels, meat grinders, rusty latches into semi-abstract portraits of things of stunning beauty and depth. Grositsky was lucky to live to be recognized. Nowadays, he can certainly be called a favorite of collectors.

Before us is Krasnopevtsev. Fabulous beauty. Rare in plot, infrequent in color, large and expensive. The authenticity has already been confirmed by the main expert in Dmitry Krasnopevtsev’s art, Alexander Ushakov. He also told us the exact name of this work: “Two shells and beads”. This is the most valuable period of the master of metaphysical still life. An indisputable masterpiece.

Mikhnov-Voitenko is a Leningrad nonconformist artist, an outstanding abstract expressionist. He worked as a turner, studied at the Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, then at the Theater Institute at the staging department. Then he worked at an art plant, made custom decorative panels and signs. He entered the history of art with the works made “for the table”. Art historians believe that in individual creative discoveries Mikhnov-Voitenko was the first in the world, ahead of the Americans and Europeans. It is no coincidence that collectors hunt for his trademark “tubes” and for paintings of the “spontaneous method”. And one of the masterpieces is in front of us.