Artist Oleg Tselkov. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

In 1977, Oleg Tselkov was going into exile with the status, if not of a living legend, then certainly of an underground celebrity. This “enfant terrible” was kicked out of the Union of Artists, worked on the decorations of provincial theatres for reference, and was deprived of exhibition opportunities. At the same time he was not a political dissident. Tselkov did not participate in the Bulldozer exhibition, shunned loud statements, did not adhere to any influential “circle” or “group”. But at the same time he drank with Yevtushenko and Siqueiros, was friends with Akhmadulina, sipped wine with Akhmatova and sold paintings to the diplomats of the Costakis circle. He lived as if the devil himself were not his brother.

Artist Vyacheslav Kalinin. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

Calligraphic sign “Kalinin VV” — the signature of Vyacheslav Vasilievich Kalinin (1939) — is a valuable attribute for his paintings, but not a necessary one. It is impossible not to recognize, and even more so to confuse Kalinin with someone. Original, distinctive organic style of the artist has not changed since the early 1960s. Cubist chopped outlines, tracing the movement of figures and turns of faces, dense narrative plot — all this fills his paintings for more than sixty years. Kalinin himself has more than once admitted that all his life he paints his autobiography on canvases.

Artist Nikolay Vechtomov. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

Nikolay Vechtomov (1923–2007) was a nonconformist artist, the creator of an original system of biomorphic cosmism, the artist of the “Lianozovo group”, a friend and associate of Rabin and Nemukhin. And also Vechtomov was a front-line soldier, a participant of Stalingrad battle, a partisan, twice escaped from a captivity. According to one of versions, it was the front impressions that set the vector for his creativity in peacetime. The vivid burgundy, red and yellow colours, Vechtomov's colour “flashes” in the biomorphic constructions — this is the memory of the outbursts from the war.

Artist Igor Vulokh. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

Artist of the 1960s. An innovator of meditative conventionality. Igor Alexandrovich Vulokh (1938–2012) is an important figure in the ranks of artists of the postwar unofficial art. And another striking example of the fact that the talent, like water, sharpens the stone of destiny. Starting conditions are slightly better than none at all. War orphanage childhood, his father died of wounds. It would seem that what can be achieved under such circumstances? But somehow it worked out.

Artist Dmitry Krasnopevtsev. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

An innovator of metaphysical still life, an intellectual, a loner, he chose the path of a recluse, avoiding fashion, noise and current trends. Today Dmitry Krasnopevtsev is one of the most expensive and sought-after masters of unofficial post-war art. His best works are bought with a fight, in a passionate rivalry. It can be seen that the artist is still a favorite of collectors, as in the epic times of Richter, Costakis, Sanovich.

Artist Ernst Neizvestny. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

“There is an angel and a devil in you. We like the angel, but we will erase the devil out of you”, Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, tried to teach him. Khrushchev himself had no idea that in less than two years his “comrades-in-arms” surrounding him would remove him from power and give up with great difficulty the organization of the staged murder. And in another 13 years, his “ideological enemy” Ernst Neizvestny, who was standing in front of him, would build and erect a tombstone for him. He would erect it in time for his emigration.

Artist Anatoly Zverev. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

A virtuoso capable of creating a masterpiece in a matter of minutes using a simple set of paints, a couple of cigarette butts and leftover snacks. An outstanding improviser. A brilliant representative of the underground art, forever persecuted by the monstrous Soviet laws. Today his works are in great demand. Zverev's craftsmanship is admired by the third generation of collectors. His exhibitions are still sold out. Memoirs and monographs are published. Dozens of buyers are competing for his works at auctions. There is a whole private museum named after him in Moscow.

Artist Vladimir Nemukhin. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

Vladimir Nikolaevich Nemukhin (1925–2016) is the most important figure in the history of unofficial post-war art. Member of the “Lianozovo group”. Friend and associate of Oscar Rabin. Participant of the Bulldozer exhibition in 1974 and the historical exhibition in the pavilion “Beekeeping” at the VDNKh in 1975. He exhibited at the City Graphics Committee on Malaya Gruzinskaya 28 as part of the group “Seven Artists” — together with his friends Krasnopevtsev, Vechtomov, Plavinsky, Kalinin, Kharitonov and others.

Artist Oscar Rabin. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

Any conversation about the significance of Oskar Rabin's work gets bogged down with politics after a while. Of course it does. After all, his fate is the brightest argument in the eternal dispute about the role of personality in history. There is a hypothesis that in the logic of historical development, a specific figure, a specific person is not so important. They say that predefined historical scenarios are implemented under any circumstances. And if there are objective contradictions, the leaders will inevitably appear. But judge for yourself...

Artist Vladimir Yakovlev. Recommendations, prices, investment aspect

A small, awkward man squints from the numerous photographs that have survived. He began to lose sight while still in school. From the age of thirty he was already regularly in psychiatric hospitals. For the last thirty years of his 64, Yakovlev was almost blind by the standards of ordinary people. Books that he loved very much, friends read aloud to him, he himself could not. For a long time he even redrawn his own surname for signing from the sample so that it came out without errors. No workshop, no apartment of his own. Constantly under the care of caring people.