Mikhail Roginsky

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Yevgeny Barabanov, "Mikhail Roginsky: Painting Against 'Art,' " in Alla Rosenfeld, ed., Zimmerli Journal, Fall 2005, Part I, no. 3, pp. 8-34

Acrylic on paper laid down on canvas. The surface is a little dirty and there are some minor scractches and stains, particularly to the outer edges. The sheet is a little buckled to the upper left, and it is lifting slightly from the canvas at lower right. The canvas is also buckled at center.There are multiple pinholes to each corner. Held in a modern wood frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Both in style and subject matter, Mikhail Roginsky's work bears some resemblance to Pop Art. However, his sources and underlying attitude differed greatly from those of his Western contemporaries. Pop Art's societal basis was lacking in Soviet Russia, where a culture of mass consumption was a nostalgic myth. As Roginsky noted, "I never planned to do Pop Art, and called my style 'documentariness.' "

In 1951, he graduated from Moscow Art College in Memory of 1905 as a stage designer but was forced to serve in the Soviet army for three years before starting work as a set designer in small provincial theaters (1954-60). He returned to Moscow in 1960.

In 1959, Roginsky viewed an exhibition of American realist art of the 1930s and 1940s held at Sokolniki Park in Moscow. The show, which included paintings by Edward Hopper, Ben Shahn, and Raphael Soyer and featured depictions of everyday life and simple interiors containing commonplace objects, made a lasting impression on the artist, introducing Roginsky to a more informal approach to painting than that of Socialist Realism. His preferred subjects were the most ordinary Moscow household items.

After immigrating to Paris in 1978, Roginsky continued to depict the simple objects and prosaic world of everyday Soviet reality, as exemplified by the present lots. Commenting on his relocation to France, Roginsky said: "I've never felt at home there. And the longer I stay there, the more removed I am from life there." The artist made his first return to Moscow in 1993, fifteen years after he had emigrated. In 2004, after a long illness, Roginsky passed away in a Paris hospice.