Evgenii Kropivnitsky

Genrikh Sapgir (acquired directly from the artist)
Private Collection

Aleksandr Glezer and Genrikh Sapgir, Lianozovskaia Gruppa: Istoki i sud'ba, sbornik materialov i katalog k vystavke v Gosudarstvennoi Tretyakovskoi galeree, exhibition catalogue, 1988, illustrated
E.L. Kropivnitsky, Izbrannoe, Moscow, 2004, illustrated

Oil on burlap mounted onto board. The surface is dirty and covered with a yellowed layer of varnish. The paint layer is a little thin and there are some areas where very small flakes of paint may have been lost and scratches have occurred. Under UV the composition appears untouched, though the varnish prevents a conclusive analysis. Held in a modern wood frame with cloth slip. Unexamined out of frame.
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A poet, composer, and artist, Evgenii Kropivnitsky was a spiritual leader of the Lianozovo group of unofficial Soviet artists of the 1950s-1960s. From 1904 to 1911 Kropivnitsky studied at the Stroganov Art School, where he became interested in Cubism, Expressionism, and Futurism. In the early 1920s, he worked as an artist in various cities in Siberia, returning to Moscow in 1923. He was accepted to the Union of Soviet Artists in 1939, receiving official commissions and creating modernist works in his spare time.

In the early 1950s, the poets Genrikh Sapgir and Igor Kholin, along with the artists Oscar Rabin and Kropivnitsky's daughter Valentina, started gathering for poetry readings, art exhibitions, and discussions about modern art in Lianozovo, a Moscow suburb where Rabin and Valentina Kropivnitskaya then lived. They were soon joined by the poet Vsevolod Nekrasov and the artist Lev Kropivnitsky, the latter of whom had recently returned from the Gulag. Many lovers of art and literature were drawn to the Lianozovo group, among them the pianist Svyatoslav Richter and the writer Ilya Ehrenburg. The artists of the Lianozovo group worked in different styles; they were united only by friendship and family ties. As this still life demonstrates, Kropivnitsky was interested in exploring Western modernist trends at a time when Socialist Realism was the only acceptable style in Soviet Russia.