Vladimir NEMUKHIN (1925-2016) - Lot 324

Vladimir NEMUKHIN (1925-2016) Game with rooster, 1975 Tempera, ink, gouache and collage on thin cardboard, signed and dated lower middle and titled in Cyrillic lower right, small damp stains 49 x 58 cm (view), framed Vladimir Nemukhin (1925-2016) is one of the major figures of unofficial Soviet post-war art. Very early on, Nemukhin rejected the socialist realism imposed by the Soviet regime and turned towards a free abstraction, inspired by Russian cubo-futurism and Western abstract expressionism. In the 1950s, he joined the "Lianozovo Group" created by Oskar Rabin. Nemukhin's work is immediately recognizable by its recurring motifs of playing cards, gaming tables and fighting cocks. These elements, treated in a lyrical, gestural abstraction, become metaphors for chance, uncertainty and individual freedom in the face of Soviet ideology. At the end of the 1990s, Nemukhin moved to Düsseldorf in Germany, but some fifteen years later, he returned to Russia. Expert: Piotr KASZNIA