Vladimir Weisberg

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

Exhibition catalogue V.G.Weisberg: Zhivopis', akvarel', risunok, Moscow: State Tretyakov Gallery, 1994, p.102, no.71 listed, illustrated b/w (erroneously numbered 72)
V.Orlov, Alexandr Ginzburg: russkii roman, Moscow: Russkii Put', 2017, p.108 visible in a b/w photograph of Ginzburg's apartment

Original canvas on original stretcher. There are some small areas of paint loss along the lower edge, in the top left quadrant and a spot on the lower left edge. There is craquelure in places, notably in the top left, as well as circular craquelure and a few cracks to her arm and further minor cracks to her forehead and elsewhere. There are areas of paint shrinkage to the background, resulting in a 'crocodile-skin' effect. There is an uneven layer of thick discoloured varnish. There are spots of dirt throughout, particularly visible on the sitter's skin. There is an area of black dirt or staining in the area of the circular craquelure on her arm. UV light reveals two very small areas of possible restoration to her neckline. Some pigments flouresce under UV. Held in a simple painted black frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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The present lot comes from the collection of Alexander (Alik) Ginzburg, one of the chief architects of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. His subversive career 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. From 1974 Ginzburg was administrator of the so­-called Solzhenitsyn Fund which was based on the royalties derived from Solzhenitsyn's book The Gulag Archipelago and existed to help Soviet political prisoners and their families. 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. We would like to thank Dr. Elena Khlopina for providing additional cataloguing information.