Vagrich Bakhchanyan

Tolstoy No.1

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Lot Closed

September 21, 02:41 PM GMT

Estimate

1,000 - 1,500 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Bar-Gera Collection

Vagrich Bakhchanyan

1938-2009

Tolstoy No.1

signed and titled in Cyrillic and dated 1972 on the reverse; further bearing various exhibition labels on the backing board and frame

collage on paper

Sheet: 52.5 by 43cm, 20½ by 17in.

Framed: 80 by 64.5cm, 31½ by 25¼in.

Exhibition catalogue Nonkonformisty: vtoroi russkii avangard 1955-1988, Cologne: Wienland, 1996, p.77 illustrated
Exhibition catalogue Avantgarde im Untergrund: Russische Nonkonformisten aus der Sammlung Bar-Gera, Wabern/Bern: Benteli, 2005, p.163, no.6 listed

St Petersburg, The State Russian Museum; Moscow, The State Tretyakov Gallery; Frankfurt, The Städel Museum et al., Nonkonformisty: vtoroi russkii avangard 1955-1988, 1996-1997
Bern, Kunstmuseum Bern, Avantgarde im Untergrund: Russische Nonkonformisten aus der Sammlung Bar-Gera, 3 February - 24 April 2005
Bratislava, The Slovak National Gallery, Nonkonformisti. Druhá ruská avantgarda 1955-1988. Zbierka Bar-Gera, 14 November 2008 - 22 February 2009

The present work is based on the portrait of Leo Tolstoy by Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy from 1873 (State Tretyakov Gallery). By deconstructing an iconic image of Tolstoy created by one of the founding members of the Peredvizhniki group, Bakhchanyan, in a manner typical for the non-conformists, playfully subverts two important tropes in official Soviet culture. One is the promotion of the socially-conscious Peredvizhniki as the most important pre-revolutionary art historical movement, with Socialist Realism seen as its ideological successor. The other is the appropriation of works by pre-revolutionary Russian writers, as well as of their biographies, as part of the wider apparatus of Soviet indoctrination.