The exhibition presented by the Kolodzei Art Foundation features linocuts from the late 1950s and early 1960s and selected drawings and collages by prominent Russian-American artist Oleg Vassiliev (1931-2013).
Oleg Vassiliev (born in 1931 in Moscow; lived and worked in New York; died in 2013 in St. Paul, Minnesota). He attended the Moscow Secondary Art School from 1947 to 1952 and graduated from the Surikov Art Institute in 1958 with a specialty in graphics. In the late 1950s he became influenced by the Russian avant-garde formalists, Vladimir Favorsky (1886–1964), Robert Falk (1886–1958), and Artur Fonvizin (1882–1973). From the time of his graduation until his emigration, Vassiliev worked as a children’s book illustrator in close collaboration with Erik Bulatov. In 1990 he immigrated to New York. After 2006, he lived and worked in St. Paul, Minnesota until his death on January 25, 2013. Vassiliev has been the recipient of numerous artistic awards and grants, including from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1994 and 2002). In 1999, he was also the first recipient of the “Liberty Prize”. Since 1968, Oleg Vassiliev participated in many group exhibitions in museums, including Ich Lebe, Ich Sene, at Kunstmuseum, Bern in 1988; Berlin-Moscow/Moscow-Berlin, Kunst 1950-2000, at The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, and Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin in 2004; Russia! at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2005; his prominent solo museum exhibitions include Oleg Vassiliev: Memory Speaks (Themes and Variations) at The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow in 2004 and The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg in 2005; The Art of Oleg Vassiliev, The Museum of Russian Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2011; Oleg Vassiliev: Space and Light at the Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick in 2014-2015. Oleg Vassiliev’s works are in many museum collections, including: The State Tretyakov Museum, Moscow; The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; Art Museum of the University of Kentucky, Lexington; ART4.RU Contemporary Art Museum, Moscow; Kolodzei Art Foundation, Highland Park, New Jersey; The Ludwig Collection, Aachen, Germany; The Costakis Collection, Athens, Greece; Dresden Staatliche Kunst Gallery, Germany; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; Norsk-Russisk Kultursenter Galleri, Kirkenes, Norway; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
The Kolodzei Art Foundation, Inc., a US-based 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public foundation started in 1991, organizes exhibitions and cultural exchanges in museums and cultural centers in the United States, Russia and other countries, often utilizing the considerable resources of the Kolodzei Collection of Russian and Eastern European Art, publishes books on Russian art.
The Kolodzei Collection of Russian and Eastern European Art is one of the world’s largest private art collections, and consists of over 7,000 works, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, digital art and videos, by more than 300 artists from Russia and the former Soviet Union.
For additional information visit www.KolodzeiArt.org or email Kolodzei@kolodzeiart.org
Address: Harriman Institute, Columbia University, 420 W 118th Street, 12th floor, NYC.
The exhibition on view until March 31, 2017