“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.

A whole cycle of pictorial dedications to like-minded people, friends and associates in the art underground can be distinguished in the work of the sixties artist Eduard Steinberg. In particular, he has a dedication to Viktor Pivovarov, a dedication to Dmitry Krasnopevtsev and now a dedication to Ilya Kabakov.

A large-scale two-meter canvas by Valery Koshlyakov is devoted this time not to distant ancient ruins, but to a part of Moscow's history and the “vanishing beauty” of an iconic place on the map of the capital. Which is a rarity in itself. The artist's favorite theme is a conversation about the loss of classical culture, the elusive beauty and the ruthlessness of time. Valery Koshlyakov is one of the top 20 most expensive living Russian artists and the top 5 artists of contemporary art.

“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.

Rukhin's masterpiece, created at the peak of his creative form. By 1971 his special style had already formed and the right recipes had been found. Nemukhin taught him to include different resins and glues into the composition. Some technical tricks were suggested to Rukhin by his friend Rabin. And soon Russian and world art was enriched with a new genre of assemblage abstraction, gravitating towards pop-art.

This particular painting was among the first batch of specially selected works, which was taken out by the English art dealer Eric Estorick to arrange the first personal exhibition of Oscar Rabin in London at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1965. Andropov reported to the CPSU Central Committee about the sale of these paintings. And it was with these paintings that Rabin ran into serious trouble in the Soviet Union.

André Lanskoy is the “count of abstractionism”, the founder of the direction of lyrical abstraction, one of the innovators of European abstract expressionism. He is indeed an aristocrat, a count by birth. He was born in St. Petersburg. His first lessons in painting were given to him by Alexandra Exter, the “Amazon of the Russian avant-garde”. In 1920, Lanskoy, together with the remnants of the White Guard, sailed to Constantinople, and from there he moved to Paris.

The appearance of such work in the Russian auction market is not news, but an event! An oil by Rabin, more than a meter in size, created in 1965, and moreover, from the exhibition at London Grosvenor Gallery. For connoisseurs of Rabin's art these three facts are eloquent confirmation of the highest level of the presented work.

The museum-scale canvas and rollicking painting with a Russian spirit is exactly the format that Shulzhenko's collectors especially appreciate. Others, however, hate him for this very reason, accusing him almost of Russophobia. Like an actor who plays a negative character, Shulzhenko is pestered for the heroes of his paintings — drunks and their rowdy girlfriends. However, for the artist, drunkards and marginals are not part of his surroundings, but an object of study.

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.