“Find me a classic Rabin with a vodka-herring”, is exactly the kind of request we have heard more than once from collectors of the “Lianozovo school”. It would seem, what is so difficult? After all, this is the most famous system of images in the works of Rabin. A still life with vodka and herring is the first thing that comes to mind when the artist's name is mentioned. There should be as many of them as Nemukhin's cards. But just approach the question practically — and oops — no way.

This painting of rare beauty comes from the collection of Piero Savoretti, an Italian entrepreneur and collector. The painting belongs to a particularly valuable inspired period. At the end of the 1970s Sveshnikov's palette becomes more dense and saturated. Connoisseurs note that in some works fantastic phosphorescent effect begins to appear, which will later disappear from his painting.

While living in the Soviet Union, Ernst Neizvestny did not consider himself a dissident. He saw the harassment and insults from the political leadership as “local excesses” and a manifestation of the “uncultured” nomenklatura. But Neizvestny had had enough of the totalitarian system. And he knew the price of freedom in every sense. And that, in fact, was why he left.

A man who had seen life, a veteran, a convict, a wanderer. The years had already begun to show. It would seem — sit in the sun and bask. But he didn't. At his old age Pavel Leonov takes up his brush again. He tried before, but stopped — he was afraid of being arrested for unearned income. And then it turns out that his true vocation was art. It happens so that people are born artists.

The inventor of the sfumato technique is considered to be the great Leonardo da Vinci. He figured out how to give an image a subtle blur, and learned how to reach a state “on the edge” — when the texture just begins to dissolve in the air and a haze appears. It is this technique that partly explains the mystery of Mona Lisa's smile. Sfumato sets the mood for many of the works of the 1960s artist Yuri Kuper. Even the word itself is associated with his name today. And the very old technique in his hands has received a new development.

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.

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.

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.