- 133
Vladimir Nikolaevich Nemukhin
bidding is closed
Description
- Vladimir Nemukhin
- Unfinished Game of Patience
- signed in Cyrillic and dated 1966 (lower center)
- mixed media on canvas
- 38 by 43 1/4 in.
- 96.5 by 110 cm
Literature
Lianozovskaia gruppa, Istoki i Sudby: sbornik materialov i katalog k vystavke v Gosudarstvennoi Tretiakovskoi galeree, 10 marta-10 aprelia 1998, Moscow, 1998, p. 193, illustrated
Catalogue Note
Vladimir Nemukhin began to include playing cards as prime motif in his oeuvre in 1963. Nemukhim stated “Cards are trivial objects, totally banal, shallow and conventional in themselves. I wanted to work with these objects precisely because they possess no weight and are so banal.”( I. Golomshtok and A. Glezer, Soviet Art in Exile, 1977 )
His meditation upon playing cards common material, design, and symbolism lead to a serious pictorial investigation on their plasticity for many years. He painted them in a broad variety of compositions, in such genres ranging from still life to figurative. His use of collage techniques and dynamic abstraction is of particular note, transforming the common, in this case, playing cards, into a geometrically based painting that is simultaneously full of motion and still. The near monochromatic palette is rich in content: from the actual collaged cards, to the sgraffito within the impasto. A geometric pattern frames the card game, which adds an illusion to the game, echoing the decor within the cards themselves.
Nemukhin studied under the artist P.E. Sokolov, a former pupil of Malevich. In 1957, he was expelled from the Surikov Art Institute for his radical views.
His meditation upon playing cards common material, design, and symbolism lead to a serious pictorial investigation on their plasticity for many years. He painted them in a broad variety of compositions, in such genres ranging from still life to figurative. His use of collage techniques and dynamic abstraction is of particular note, transforming the common, in this case, playing cards, into a geometrically based painting that is simultaneously full of motion and still. The near monochromatic palette is rich in content: from the actual collaged cards, to the sgraffito within the impasto. A geometric pattern frames the card game, which adds an illusion to the game, echoing the decor within the cards themselves.
Nemukhin studied under the artist P.E. Sokolov, a former pupil of Malevich. In 1957, he was expelled from the Surikov Art Institute for his radical views.