Grisha Bruskin

The artist

Sotheby's, Moscow, 7 June 1988, lot 23

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Grisha Bruskin came to the attention of the international art world when six of his paintings, including the present lot, were sold at Sotheby’s groundbreaking auction of Russian Avant-Garde and Soviet Contemporary Art, which took place in Moscow on 7 July 1988. The only auction by an international auction house ever to be held in the Soviet Union, the event was highly publicised abroad, and clients were flown in especially for the sale. Alongside works by artists of the Russian Avant-Garde, the sale included works by “non-official” or “non-conformist” artist, contemporary Soviet artists who until very recently had been working underground, or on the fringes of the official art institutions. On the cover of the sale catalogue was a large work from Bruskin’s Fundamental Lexicon series. Estimated at less than 20,000 USD, it sold for over 400,000 USD, a new record for any living Russian artist.

Drawing on his experience of growing up Jewish in post-war Soviet Russia, Bruskin’s work examines two major, interconnected themes: the mythology of Judaism, as well as the social mythology of the Soviet state. For Bruskin, Judaism offered an escape from Soviet reality, as well as an alternative myth to that forced onto its citizens by the state. The Alefbet series, which the artist began in 1984, examines Judaism. Based on Bruskin’s reading of the Kabbalah, paintings from this series feature figures in Jewish religious clothing, combined with symbols or attributes drawn from Jewish traditions and folklore, as well as text fragments in Hebrew. As is suggested by the title, the figures represent letters or words, part of an alphabet or vocabulary.

Dating from 1984, Alefbet No. 15 is an important early work. It was painted before Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, at a time when the overtly Jewish theme would have been seen as a challenge to Soviet power and its repression of religion. Bruskin’s work was considered subversive of Soviet ideology, and even religious propaganda, making it impossible for him to have any solo exhibitions. The context had fundamentally changed by the time of the 1988 sale. Shortly after the auction, Bruskin left the Soviet Union and settled in New York, where he became one of the most successful Russian émigrés artists of his generation.