MOSCOW.- Moscow Museum of Modern Art together with Tsukanov Family Foundation and AVC Charity Foundation presents the first large-scale retrospective show of Vladimir Nemukhin, one of the key representatives of Soviet Nonconformist art. The exhibition includes artworks from collections of The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, The State Tretyakov Gallery, Tsukanov Family Foundation, AVC Charity Foundation, Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, as well as from Russian and international private collections.

In the Soviet Union, where Social Realist art was considered the only art acceptable, abstract artists found themselves in an opposition to the official ideology, and in an open confrontation with the state. Vladimir Nemukhin (b.1925), whose art was close to Western European art of the time, was expelled from the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute. But despite the official ban, his oeuvre was of great interest to the younger generation of art lovers, which appeared during the Khrushchev Thaw.

The exhibition is divided into thematic and formal sections, suggested by the curator. Over a hundred paintings and sculptures exhibited will allow the visitors to trace Nemukhin’s artistic career from the 1950s until the present time. Several artworks, including two monumental sculptures, have been made for the exhibition and are shown to the public for the first time. Part of the exhibition is devoted to the Soviet-period artworks by Lydia Masterkova (19272008), Nemukhin’s fellow-artist and partner for over a decade.

Nemukhin was first introduced to Abstract art by Pyotr Sokolov, an artist who would become his first teacher. Teaching Nemukhin the principles of Cubism, Impressionism and Futurism, Sokolov greatly influenced the development of the young artist’s style. Never ceasing his constant creative search, Nemukhin went on to explore all the possibilities discovered within abstract art within the last 50 years: from lyrical to geometric abstraction.

Nemukhin met his companion Lydia Masterkova at Na Chudovke art school, and in 1954 she became his common-law wife. The couple occupied one third of a room in a communal flat they shared with Masterkova’s parents, and in a constant dialogue in this tiny live-and-work space each developed his or her unique vision of abstract art. In 1968, Nemukhin and Masterkova separated but, due to the mutual influence they had exerted upon each other’s art, the couple remains one of the outstanding examples of an artistic union in Russian art.

In 1956, Vladimir Nemukhin met Oscar Rabin and joined the Lianozovo Group, where he got acquainted with other underground artists. With the other members of this group, Nemukhin participated in the infamous 1974 Bulldozer Exhibition.

Vladimir Nemukhin has spent his entire adult life in Moscow. Impressions of the city have influenced his style, making his imagery more awkward, dissymmetric and multilayered. Another key object that Nemukhin’s creative search has brought him to is the playing card. A set of cards became a symbol of the mysterious and mystical obscurity, uncertainty of the future. Barely visible under a layer of paint in the very centre of a work, the playing card with its formal properties and deep symbolism holds a central place in Nemukhin’s oeuvre.