Arthur Fonvizin (1883-1993) "Stop, a moment ..."

“Each exhibition of a great artist reveals to us something new in the well-known, beloved world of the images created by him. Exhibition of works by A.V. Fonvizin is no exception in this regard. But, what can be seen in his amazing, always recognizable watercolors?

Figures of charming riders and cute horses, childishly naive, swirling in an unusual world of dreams and memories, or airy and completely material, real and illusory, bouquets amazing with unusual tints, a game of color flashes… All this is well known to the viewer, as well as his mysterious images contemporaries captured in portraits…

Fonvizin is not a psychologist in the portrait, nor a flatterer, nor a delighted young man. He is a loving master. The color and colors for him are the ABCs, their combinations add up to the narrative of that wonderful world that God gave the artist. Watercolors A.V. Fonvizin is a small window into the wonderful world of his life, his soul… ”, the researchers note.

A.V. Fonvizin created not only his own unique style, technique, but also the watercolor technique. Teachers in Moscow and Munich, communicating with contemporary artists, the influence of the ideas of artistic associations, self-identity - the origins of the formation of his pictorial manner. And at the same time there were artists, geniuses of the past, whose creations bizarrely refracted in his magical vision, gave rise to new associations. These are Rembrandt and Velazquez. It is known that A.V. Fonvizin made copies of their paintings, in the 1920s he was literally “sick” with Rembrandt, and Diego Velazquez idolized his whole life.

Until recently, not a single copy, not a single remark from the works of the great Spaniard A.V. Fonvizin was not known. This exhibition reveals to us this amazing mystery of A.V. Fonvizin, influences on his inner world the work of the great master. For the first time, not memories, but a living work by A.V. Fonvizin testifies to his attitude to his beloved work of Velazquez.

The Infanta Margarita presented at the exhibition repeats quite accurately the composition of the well-known portrait of Velazquez Infanta Margarita of Austria (1660). But this is not a copy or a replica, but a kind of artistic research. A.V. Fonvizin conveys in his watercolor not the exact colors of Velazquez, but their effects under certain lighting conditions, the play of his brilliant painting in the sun. This picture is a brilliant evidence of the amazing intellectual work of A.V. Fonvizin.

The exposition is organically supplemented by color lithographs by Alla Belyakova, students of A. Fonvizin and R. Falk, a versatile gifted person, author of numerous watercolors, some of which are presented in major Russian museums and foreign collections.

The exhibition recalls one of the most interesting pages in the history of Russian fine art.

The exhibition is open to visitors from October 16 to November 18, 2018.