Oleg Vassiliev

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 1991

Original canvas, the tacking edges have been taped over with canvas tape. The artist's original pencil underdrawing is visible through the paint layer. There are handling marks along all four edges and some staining in the upper left corner. There is a general layer of surface dirt. There are a couple of areas of fine craquelure to the black pigment in the lower horizontal trapezium and some light scuff marks in the centre of the upper one. There is a surface scratch going through the background and the grey pigment of the vertical trapezium in the lower left. Inspection under UV light reveals retouching to the aforementioned scratch. Unframed.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

View of the Statue of Liberty on a Foggy Night is one of Vassiliev’s earliest and most important post-emigration works. Encouraged by the patronage of Phyllis Kind Gallery, the artist emigrated to the United States in 1990 amid the ongoing political and economic turmoil brought about by the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Travelling first to Paris, he and his wife Kira arrived in New York, where for the next fifteen years Vassiliev would work and exhibit alongside his friends and fellow artists, Erik Bulatov and Ilya Kabakov.

As a symbol of freedom and one of the first sites seen by immigrants upon their arrival to the United States, the Statue of Liberty was a compelling subject for the non-conformist artist who was famously denied a state-funded personal exhibition in the Soviet Union. While his Russian period paintings are often interpreted as ‘portals’ into his most treasured memories, the present lot conveys the artist’s perception of reality as he encountered it on a foggy night in New York. In spite of the specificity of time and place, however, the New York skyline is rendered in the distance, its representation hovering on the margins between realism and abstraction. Enclosed in an organised geometric structure, the cityscape seems to exist in an ethereal and metaphysical space which invites the beholder to enter and contemplate it.