Viktor Efimovich Popkov

Matthew Cullerne Bown, London (acquired directly from the artist's widow circa 1990)
Raymond and Susan Johnson, Minneapolis, 1993
The Museum of Russian Art, Minneapolis, 2002

Oxford, England, The Museum of Modern Art, Soviet Socialist Realist Painting 1930s-1960s, January-March 1992
Fairfield, Connecticut, Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery, Realism: The Spirit of Soviet Art 1932-1980, April-July 2000
Bloomington, Minnesota, The Museum of Russian Art, Cultural Horizons of Soviet Art, September-December 2002
For additional exhibitions at The Museum of Russian Art see sothebys.com

M. Cullerne Bown, Soviet Socialist Realist Painting 1930s-1960s, Oxford, 1992, p. 83, illustrated
M. Bulanova and A. Rosenfeld, Soviet Dis-Union: Socialist Realist and Nonconformist Art, Minneapolis, 2006, p. 80, pl. 25, illustrated
Twentieth Century Russian Painting Masters, Viktor Popkov (1932-1974), Moscow, 2006, p. 44, illustrated

This painting is in beautiful condition. It has been cleaned and varnished fairly recently. The canvas is unlined and there are no paint losses or visible restoration. Working on such a broad scale, the artist has used a variety of different techniques such as scraping, but all of this scraping or slight abrasion is original. The picture should be hung as is. The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Viktor Popkov was a distinctively talented Socialist Realist painter and a leading exponent of the officially sanctioned Severe Style in the early 1960s, though his later style was uniquely expressive, inspired by folk art and icon painting. He was undoubtedly inspired by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, whose influence is suggested by the presence of the apple at lower center of the offered lot. This work belongs to one of Popkov's best-known series, which includes his related masterpiece, A Couple (fig 1), now in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery. A Family in July is captured from an unusual perspective; the father gazes outward, seeming to both confront the viewer and reflectively study the sky. This image offers a rare and idyllic glimpse at the artist's oeuvre at the peak of its potential, finished just years before his life was cut tragically short, in 1974, when he was accidentally shot by security guards.