Vladimir Yakovlev is not the most expensive artist of the 1960s. There are much more expensive ones. But he is a phenomenon. “An alien in human form”, as his friend, the artist Valentin Vorobyov, said. What happened to him was a triumph of a higher destiny. Nothing had foretold it. His eyes had been hurting since childhood. He never graduated from high school. Employment as a retoucher in the publishing house “Art”. But then came the Thaw. 1957. The festival. Visiting exhibitions with Vasiliy Sitnikov. And a sudden emotional breakthrough: “I want to be an artist!”

There are too few people in our world who are capable of moving forward without regard to public opinion, aggressive misunderstanding and fierce criticism. And Rauf Mamedov had to have a lot of courage to show his projects 20 years ago. Critics didn't like the fact that the models for Rauf Mamedov's photo pictures were people with Down syndrome and people with schizophrenia. The artist visualized the philosophical theory of Gilles Deleuze, his “schizoanalysis”, where madness can be interpreted as the highest form of liberation and the engine of progress.

This tough psychological and mystical cycle by Mikhail Chemiakine is called “Angels of Death”. A series of watercolors of the same name was exhibited at the Hermitage in 1995. A powerful expressionist cycle: overcoming nightmares, desacralization of the world of shadows, photo-reportage from the depths the subconscious.

We recently had a rubric “Artists and Music” (with Sitnikov and Shostakovich, as well as with Yankilevsky and Rabinovich-Barakovsky). And today it is time to introduce the heading “Sculptors and Poets”. The case is unique. The ArtSale.info auction features two sculptures dedicated to the main poets of the Silver Age — Anna Akhmatova and Sergei Yesenin. And not just sculptures, but author's 30-centimeter castings for full-size monuments already installed in Moscow.

But let's not delay. Proceed.