Yuri Pavlovich Annenkov

The late 1950s – early 1960s witnessed the rediscovery of the Russian avant-garde, with many Western museums organising retrospective exhibitions dedicated to the work of Russian émigré artists. Annenkov was invited to take part in a large survey exhibition Cinquante ans de "collages": Papiers collés, assemblages, collages, du Cubisme à nos jours held at the Musée d’Art et d’Industrie in Saint-Etienne in 1964, and then at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Around the same time, galleries began generating interest in the work of Russian avant-garde artists, whose earlier work was more commercial than their more recent creations. This process prompted artists who had not been able to bring examples of their early work from Russia to start creating new artworks inspired by their own earlier ideas. Such, for instance, was the case for Paul Mansouroff, who began repeating his compositions from the 1920s. Likewise, over the course of the 1960s, Annenkov realised a series of collages which he dated to the period 1917-1923. The artist also executed several portrait drawings of individuals whom he had encountered during his Russian years, including Esenin, Malevich, and Rasputin. These were used to illustrate his autobiographical publication The Diary of My Meetings.

Annenkov's collages were shown at several Parisian galleries, including Marcel Fleiss, Pinés, and Galerie Jean Chauvelin. The artist employed materials dating to the pre-revolutionary period, such as journal clippings featuring articles about his work, tsarist paper money, contemporary photographs, engravings, as well as bits of fabric, metal, and string. Altogether, Annenkov created around thirty such works, rich in conceptual nature and inspired by the dynamism of the 1920s.

This body of work constitutes an integral part of Annenkov’s œuvre and is of great interest and artistic value. The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid and the Centre Pompidou in Paris both hold examples of these collages in their collections.

We are grateful to the expert Vladimir Hofmann, the artist's former student and author of his catalogue raisonné, for providing additional cataloguing information.