Oleg Vassiliev

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Oleg Vassiliev, Memory Speaks, Palace Editions, 2004, p.110 and back cover, illustrated

Original canvas. There are some very light abrasions in places to the edges, otherwise the picture is clean and ready to hang. Unframed.
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This unconventional group portrait is a classic example of Oleg Vassiliev's unique blend of graphic and realist art. He would often paint from faded black-and-white photographs, 'gray, like a vanishing memory'. Here he is portrayed opposite his wife, Kira, and beside two of his oldest and closest friends, Eric Bulatov and Ilya Kabakov. The work is a simple yet effective representation of two of the artist's favourite themes: nostalgia and space. "I once defined what art means to me," Vassiliev confidently states, "it's about constructing a space for the things I love. It is a search for a space for my favourite things".

As Andrew Solomon writes in The Shimmering Light of Retrospect, 'Memory, friendship and light are the dominant modes in the work of Oleg Vassiliev, and it is often hard to tell where one of these virtues leaves off and the others begin, for his friendships extend to landscape, his light to those he loves, his rich memory to the very quality of his visual images'. (cited in Oleg Vassiliev: Memory Speaks, 2005 p.14).