OLEG VASSILIEV | Mist

signed with artist's monogram and indistinctly dated '95' l.l.; further signed and titled in Latin and dated '95' on the reverseoil on canvasOleg Vassiliev pursued a career as a children’s book illustrator which afforded a living to discretely work on his own projects. In the late 1950s Vassiliev started experimenting and working on his own art and in 1968 he had his first and last solo exhibition in the USSR which lasted only a day and took place at the underground Blue Bird Café on Chekhov Street in Moscow. Vassiliev never considered himself a political artist. The present landscape is a classic example of his principal interest in painterly explorations of light and space. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Vassiliev moved to the United States, where for the next fifteen years he would work and exhibit alongside his friends and fellow artists, Erik Bulatov and Ilya Kabakov.

Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in the late 1990s

Original canvas. There is a layer of light surface dirt, otherwise in overall good condition. UV light reveals no apparent signs of retouching. Held in a silver-painted frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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