Vladimir Grigorievich Weisberg

Acquired directly from the artist by Alexander Ginzburg (1936-2002)
Inherited by his widow, Irena Ginzburg

Moscow, Fifth Exhibition of the Work of Young Artists of Moscow, 1959

A.Vikhrev, 'Kartinki s vystavki', Krokodil, no.18, 30 June 1959, illustrated

Original canvas. There is a layer of light surface dirt. There are frame abrasions along the edges with some minor associated paint loss. There is some craquelure in places, most notably to the centre where the craquelure is slightly raised but appears stable at present. There is a small area of paint loss approximately 15cm from the left edge and 4cm from the top edge. Inspection under UV light does not reveal any apparent signs of retouching. Held in a simple wooden strip frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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The present lot was illustrated in Krokodil in a review of an exhibition of young artists. The fictional art critic in the accompanying article, Professor K.R.Okodil, describes the painting thus as he stands in front of the present still life in conversation: ‘Here is an example of an artist who has disregarding everything else except for the application of paint on the surface of the canvas. The author is gripped by the single idea that everything be blurred, abstract and undefined.  This rather mysterious painting is the result.’

The painting belonged to Alexander (Alik) Ginzburg, one of the chief architects of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. His career as a dissident began in 1959, when he edited the first of three issues of samizdat poetry for Sintaksis, the first underground magazine in Soviet Russia. He also participated in demonstrations, and in 1960 he was expelled from university and sentenced to two years in a labour camp.  A constant irritant to the authorities, in all Ginsburg served three terms of imprisonment for his activities. Ginsburg had been administrator of the so­-called Solzhenitsyn Fund since its inception in April 1974, two months after the novelist had been expelled from the Soviet Union. The fund was based on the royalties derived from Solzhenitsyn's book The Gulag Archipelago and existed to help Soviet political prisoners and their families. By the time of Ginzburg's arrest in 1977, it had disbursed over £200,000 to hundreds of people.

In April 1979, without warning, Ginzburg was transferred with four other dissidents via Moscow to New York where they were exchanged for two Soviets who had been jailed for espionage. Ginzburg went to live with the Solzhenitsyns' at their home at Cavendish, Vermont, and was joined by his family the following year. He eventually settled in Paris, where he worked as a journalist for the émigré weekly La Pensée Russe. He also continued to lobby vigorously on behalf of the dissidents he had left behind.