Why did Nikolina Gora become such a place of power in Zverev's work? Oksana Aseeva had a dacha in this picturesque village near Moscow. She was a widow of the poet Nikolay Aseev, a friend of Mayakovsky. A woman of progressive views, she was the “muse of Russian futurism”. But today we often think of her as the muse of Anatoly Zverev. Zverev loved to visit Nikolina Gora, lived in pleasant company and worked with pleasure.

A new way of filling in the backgrounds and techniques for the embedding of objects in assemblages and abstractions was shown to his friend from Leningrad, Yevgeny Rukhin, by Vladimir Nemukhin in the 1960s. A geologist by training, Rukhin became one of the most brilliant artists of unofficial art. And one of the most daring. Rukhin's intransigence and courage, his open confrontation with the authorities gave rise to the version of his murder for political reasons.

Regular viewers of our channel know that Sveshnikov's “grave” stories are a complex dispute with fate, a form of the “vanitas” genre — a reflection on the meaning, purpose and frailty of life. He knew what he was talking about, because more than once he was on the verge of life and death.

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.

What many consider Sveshnikov's Kafkaesque romance is actually a sublimation of the difficult and traumatic memories of his youth. At 19, he was arrested on a trumped-up case of preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin and sent to the camps almost to certain death. Sveshnikov quickly lost his health and was driven to the brink of madness by starvation and disease. But he survived by a miracle thanks to the help of his friends, and his drawing sessions helped him keep his sanity. The works of the 1980s are considered by many connoisseurs to be the pinnacle of Sveshnikov's art. His phantasmagorias were becoming more and more complex in terms of subject, and painting was reaching the highest degree of elaboration.

Vyacheslav Kalinin , an artist of the 1960s, created his own very recognizable style, which has been called “carnivalism” — from the word carnival. Very aptly. Kalinin's characters are almost always fun. The regulars in his paintings are broken ladies, drunkards, and cheerful artist friends. His works are very moody, phantasmagoric, with elements of cubist deconstruction. And “A beer bar in Serpukhov” — a model example of the genre. A large, powerful painting. Published. The main theme. A jewel in the collection.

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!”

At first glance, it is clear that this is a work of a student of Aivazovsky. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Grigory Kapustin worked for several years in the studio of the outstanding marine painter in Feodosia, even made free copies of his works. Kapustin's paintings in tsarist Russia were printed on postcards in huge circulation. The artist was widely known and successful. Today his works are kept in many regional museums, including Peterhof, as well as in Russian and foreign private collections.

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.

Works by the 1960s artist Boris Sveshnikov regularly participate in our auctions, but still recall the biography. At the age of 19, he was sent to a prison camp due to slander, for anti-Soviet activities. The “goner” dying of exhaustion was saved by the paramedic Arkady Akimovich Steinberg — the artist of the “Silver Age” and the father of Eduard Steinberg. Perhaps it was precisely that camp horror that gave rise to that very unique imagery in Sveshnikov's work — with monsters, graves, infernal figures. What is called “Kafkaesque romance”.