The exhibition of the year ended at the Russian Museum

Last week, an exhibition of abstract artists from the New Reality studio, founded by Eli Belyutin in the 1950s, completed its work at the Russian Museum. Since September 24, 2.5 thousand people have visited it. For the first time in Russia, a wide range of previously unknown works of the national school of abstract art of the second half of the last century was presented. In many ways, for this reason, experts called it the exhibition of the year.

“The closeness, non-publicity and obscurity of the Russian school, caused by the persecution of informal associations during the years of Soviet power, led to a misperception of the role of our country in the world art system,” says Olga Uskova, Chairman of the Board of the Russian Abstract Art Fund. Indeed, developing their work in parallel with Russian masters, European and American artists Jackson Pollock, Jasper Jones, Serge Polyakoff, Pierre Sulazh had the opportunity to immediately show the world their paintings, and as a result were now at the forefront in art ratings.

This state of affairs is also confirmed by analysts. According to the Norwich University of the Arts in Europe, no more than 3% of the population is inclined to believe that Russia has made any contribution to the development of world abstract art. In the US, this figure reaches 1.7%. For comparison, in the largest cities of our country, Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to an express survey of the Russian Abstract Art Foundation, 57% of respondents agreed with this statement, and in the regions, on average, 38%.

“Events such as an exhibition in the Russian Museum contribute to the restoration of historical justice and provide the general public with the opportunity to analyze and evaluate the work of our abstract artists. Their work is in no way inferior to their Western counterparts, and they have no equal in their energy. They did not paint for the sake of sale or the desire to become famous. Creativity was the basis of their life, ”said Olga Uskova.

The exhibition featured more than 70 paintings and drawings from the collection of the Russian Abstract Art Foundation - these are the works of Eli Belyutin and his followers: Vladislav Zubarev, Lucian Gribkov, Anatoly Safokhin, Tamara Ter-Ghevondyan, Vera Preobrazhenskaya. The first exhibition of “New Reality” within the walls of the Russian Museum spanned more than fifty years of the studio’s history. The exposition was supplemented by the diaries of artists, photographs, examples of educational tasks illustrating the creative method of artists.

Russian Abstract Art Foundation

The mission of the “Fund of Russian Abstract Art”, founded in 2013, is to form the correct scientific and historical understanding of Russian abstract art in a global context. The foundation of the Fund’s meeting is painting, graphics, and archival materials from the participants of the New Reality studio.

The creativity of the artists of the New Reality studio is a unique phenomenon. The contribution made by artists of the New Reality studio to world art is comparable in strength to the legacy of the first abstract artists of the early twentieth century - V. Kandinsky, K. Malevich, M. Larionov, E. Lisitsky, A. Rodchenko. Each of the artists of the studio, V. Zubarev, L. Gribkov, T. Ter-Ghevondyan, A. Safokhin, A. Kryukov, V. Preobrazhenskaya, created his own individual artistic language, and V. Zubarev formulated an independent direction - “Temporal art”.