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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.