Exhibition "Oleg Frontinsky. The artist and his collection"

Oleg Borisovich Frontinsky was born in 1938 in Leningrad. The child survived the blockade. After graduating from the Faculty of Architecture of the Academy of Arts in 1961, he worked for many years at design institutes. But his real passion was and remains painting, the craving for which he felt back in the early 1950s, during classes at the Palace of Pioneers in the famous studio of S.D. Levin.

The academic routine failed to defeat his personality. The vaccine of French modernism, as well as the acquaintance and subsequent friendship with the artists of the Arefev circle were saved. It was in them that the real artistic truth was revealed to him. Thanks to them, Frontinsky realized and set for himself those goals that he had been striving to achieve all his life. The influence of their art is quite noticeable in some works of the 1970s and 80s with their pasty style of writing, powerful contour, rich and expressive colorful texture associated with cooling lava, still heated inside, but already covered with a sintering crust, sometimes darkly focused, sometimes open, relaxed color.

Nevertheless, the desire to find his face, to develop his own pictorial language prompted further development. In the 1990s, a tendency toward simplification (but not impoverishment) of the picture, revealing the constructive basis of the picture, became noticeable. In the future, mixes of colorful dough are increasingly giving way to the location of color, more concise form. By the end of the 2000s, he often builds a form with colored lines, moving away from pure picturesqueness in the direction of drawing, modulating the colorful plane, creating a vibrating surface. “I consider the law of economy of materials and means of expression to be the main law of art in general,” the artist formulates his credo.

Having lived his whole life on Vasilievsky Island and being a convinced "islander", Frontinsky chose a city landscape as his main theme. In his many views of Leningrad-Petersburg you can see a wide palette of feelings and conditions that our city is capable of provoking. And sadness, and joy, and concentration, and glee, and tenderness, and brutality… Here is a ceremonial view of Isaac, and here it would seem a completely unremarkable passage yard on Vasilyevsky. Before us is an extensive panorama of the city seen from the roof of one of the houses, then a view from the window of a sports ground in the courtyard. As a rule, these landscapes are practically not populated. Only occasionally can one see small staff figures of people.

But at some point the optics of the artist is changing. And in the early 1990s, another thematic layer appeared in his work. Faceless figures before this suddenly come closer and become the main graphic motive: sketches, scenes, and positions. And practically in each of these scenes somewhere there, beyond the plane of the canvas, some kind of plot is implied, although it is not always clearly read. All these sketches, lines, skating rinks, pools, beaches are full of everyday specificity. And this concreteness lies not in the details of being described, but in the ability to convey with plastic means the feeling of the thick of life, psychological certainty.

It should be noted that this exhibition is not quite ordinary. Being a retrospective monographic exhibition of a recognized master of the urban landscape, it at the same time represents another creative facet of the artist - the ability to subtly feel someone else’s talent.

Many artists have some kind of art collection. More rarely, they are the result of the conscious activity of their owner. Frontinsky purposefully collected the works of artists that were important for its development. In a sense, the presented collection is a breeding ground for his own creativity. It is based on the works of A. Arefiev, G. Ustyugov, V. Shagin, R. Vasmi, Sh. Schwartz, V. Nekrasov, O. Grigoriev… Moreover, many of them were one of the first to discover the talent of Oleg Borisovich, and the friendship with them continued on for many children. This section of the exhibition can be considered as a kind of tuning fork for the entire exposition as a whole, dedicated to the approaching 80th anniversary of the artist.

Exhibition “Oleg Frontinsky. The artist and his collection "
December 22, 2017 - February 4, 2018
Wed - Sun: from 12.00 to 19.00
New Museum of Aslan Chekhoev
St. Petersburg, 6th line V.O., d. 29
www.novymuseum.ru
tel.: (812) 323 50 90
Tickets: full - 350 rubles.,
preferential 200 rub. (pensioners, students)