Executed in 1957, Boy with Balloons is one of the few surviving works from Tselkov’s early period, marked by daring experiments and a changing cultural and political climate.

In the second half of the 1950s, during a period of cultural re-examination and a degree of liberalization known as ‘Thaw’, several key events took place in the Soviet Union. On 26 October 1956, a Picasso retrospective opened at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, which later travelled to the Hermitage in Leningrad (fig.1). The following year the Sixth World Festival of Youth and Students opened in Moscow, showing 4,500 works by contemporary foreign artists, including examples of American abstract expressionism which were of particular interest to the young Tselkov (fig.2).

After years of cultural autarky, conservatism and state-imposed doctrine of Socialist Realism, these events signified a re-evaluation of international modern art and Russia’s own suppressed artistic heritage. For a young generation of artists, not only did this offer the opportunity to study hitherto forbidden examples of modern and contemporary art, but it also provided a forum for lively, spontaneous public discussion of contemporary culture and political issues of freedom and truth.

Tselkov, who was studying in Leningrad at the time, took part in these discussions and was an active member of the bohemian art scene. By the mid-1950s he had already been expelled from art educational institutions twice for ‘formalism in art’. He only completed his higher education in 1958, graduating from the Leningrad State Theatre Institute with a specialisation in stage design. Nevertheless, Tselkov always considered himself a self-taught artist, emphasising that his pictorial system was formed outside of educational institutions. ‘Oleg Tselkov is a genius who has no need of a past, as if he gave birth to himself.’ – commented Ilya Kabakov in his ‘Notes on Unofficial Life in Moscow’. (I.Kabakov, ‘60-70-e… Zapiski o neofitsial’noy zhizni v Moskve’, Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Vienna, 1999)

Tselkov counted among his friends famous writers, poets and artists, not to mention the great collector of the Russian avant-garde George Costakis, who would become one of his first supporters (fig.3). At a time when modernist art was hidden from view in the storerooms of Soviet museums, Costakis’s private collection, which he displayed on the walls of his home, became Moscow’s unofficial museum of modern art and a meeting place for art lovers and international art collectors visiting the capital. Oleg Tselkov was a frequent guest at Costakis’ along with other non-official artists such as Anatoly Zverev, Oskar Rabin, Dmitri Krasnopevtsev, Dmitri Plavinsky and Vladimir Weisberg. Their friendship with Costakis gave them access to the avant-garde legacy, to which many of their own works aspired and responded. In return, Costakis started expanding his collecting interests by acquiring contemporary pieces. Boy with Balloons was among the works that entered Costakis’ non-conformist collection in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

‘Later, in the 1950s, alongside my interest in the avant-garde and Russian icons, I discovered a passion for the works by young Russian artists. There was a relatively small group in the 1950s – around 10-12 people – all very talented (…) For several years, I would purchase one or two things from each one of these artists every year. Many of them offered me their paintings as gifts. (…) We developed very close and amiable relationships. They would often visit me to look at paintings or to show me their own works. And I frequently called on them at their studios. This lasted until around 1960: you might say that I performed the role of a kind of father-patron. After all, nobody was interested in the youth back then.’ – Costakis wrote in his memoirs.

With its impeccable provenance, Boy with Balloons is a highly important example of the artist’s early work and presents a rare opportunity to acquire a painting from this crucial period of Tselkov’s artistic development.