ArtSale.info Auction »

“Cat with a Bird” is one of the most poignant subjects of Vladimir Yakovlev. In a cat catching a bird, the audience rightly saw a metaphor for the defenselessness of a living being in a harsh world, the cruelty of the confrontation between predator and victim. The subject in itself is philosophical and complex. And in the execution of the mentally ill artist, it acquired a special depth and drama.

Krasnopevtsev's amazing still lifes are not impressions, but the fruit of a complex philosophical work. The artist himself led a semi-reclusive lifestyle. He did not travel to exotic places and has never been abroad, including France, which he dreamed of. Exotic shells, shards, beautiful branches of overseas plants were brought to him by his friends. And out of the “dialogue” with these objects amazing metaphysical still lifes were born — a kind of “Krasnopevtsev's worlds”.

Geometric Steinberg of the valuable Moscow pre-emigration period. 1970s. And one meter museum size. And the plot is a godsend for collectors. This is not the usual compositional “geometry”, but a suprematic concentrate. In the center — the planetary model, and in the left corner — a picture-in-picture. An experimental piece! Rarity!

Kasimov is an ancient town in the Ryazan region on the picturesque high bank of Oka. In those parts, in the village, Vasily Shulzhenko spent his childhood. It was there that he got his first glimpse of bizarre representatives of human fauna, which many years later turned into phantasmagoric characters in his paintings.

Yury Annenkov is an artist of Russian avant-garde, an experimentalist, an innovator of portrait genre. Images of Trotsky, Meyerhold and Akhmatova, which first come to mind for many, belong to his hand. Annenkov is one of the most expensive Russian artists. In the auction ranking, he takes 19th place with a result of 6.3 million dollars for the “Portrait of Alexander Nikolaevich Tikhonov”, sold at Christie's in 2014.

Oleg Tselkov is an artist of life metaphors. His trademark face masks and biomorphic plastics are his toolkit for the visual expression of ideas. He invented this language in the late 1950s and used it until the end of his life.

Six months of life in the new political and economic conditions. What has happened to the Russian art market during this time? How has it responded to change?

The porcelain black sculptures and their white counterparts are Oleg Tselkov's first and only experience of transferring his characters into small sculptural plastic. In other words: he had plates, vase, dishes and even a porcelain egg, but there the technique of transferring flat images was used. Tselkov had volumetric plasticity only in porcelain and bronze.

1971 — Steinberg's Moscow-Tarusian period. A light, airy, luminous piece. Figurative basis dominates in this work. Although if you look closely, the background on which the bird flies is dissected by a geometric element, typical of the artist's Suprematist line.

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.