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12:00 GMT 4 December 2024

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* 95. YANKILEVSKY, VLADIMIR (1938-2018)

Collection of Compositions from "The Anatomy of Feelings" and "Sodom and Gomorrah" Albums, three works, each signed, titled in Cyrillic, one numbered "11" and dated "21/IV-72"; another numbered "2/10" and dated 1978; one dated 1979.

Each etching on paper, the largest measurinng 41 by 74.5 cm and the smallest 30.5 by 43 cm.
1,200-1,800 GBP

Provenance: A gift from the artist to the father of the present owner, 1970s-1980s.
Private collection, Europe.

The collection of works by nonconformist artists presented for auction (Lots 89–96) was gathered during the last two decades of the Soviet Union. All of the works were gifted by the artists themselves, with whom the father of the present owner shared many years of friendship and artistic interaction. At the core of this collection are works on paper of artistic and historical significance by Ilya Kabakov and Vladimir Yankilevsky. Comprising drawings and prints from the early 1970s onwards, the collection serves as a testament to the important and profound links forged by artists during the most testing of times for their creative endeavour. Without a doubt, the appearance of this collection on the market will be a real discovery for connoisseurs of Russian art of the second half of the twentieth century.

It is not accidental that graphic medium played an important role in the oeuvre of Nonconformist artists. Some, like Kabakov, earned a living as professional book illustrators, an artistic occupation, which still allowed some room for creative exploration. All in all, Kabakov illustrated over 150 children’s books. In the 1970s the artist turned to the album format, following in the footsteps of the leading avant-garde artists of the early 20th century. He created ten albums, which recounted through text and drawings invented stories about rejected and misunderstood artists. Kabakov drew on his experience as an illustrator, adopting the innocent format of children’s books in order to purposefully disguise the exploration of serious human and social issues. “They suggest ten positions from which Homo Sovieticus can react to his world, ten psychological attitudes, ten perspectives on emptiness, ten parodies of the aesthetic traditions through which Kabakov evolved his vocabulary, ten aspects of Kabakov’s personality” (ilya-emilia-kabakov.com/albums/). Two works by Kabakov being offered are from these famous Albums: Mathematical Gorsky from 1973 (Lot 89) and The Looking out the Window Arkhipov (Lot 91)

A galvanising figure in Moscow’s and Soviet underground art community of the era, Kabakov went on to create texts devoted to subjects on a wide range of topics, including art and philosophy. Many of these texts, which often invoked the classics of Russian literature, he would distribute among his friends, and one such example is being presented here. Nozdriov and Pliushkin (Lot 94) is Kabakov’s hand-made booklet with his text interpreting the two characters from N. Gogol’s novel Dead Souls, in which Kabakov explores the state of contemporary art in the USSR.

The relationship between the core essence of the feminine and the masculine, and their place in the Universe is the central theme in Vladimir Yankilevsky’s oeuvre, the theme which he continued to explore in his numerous drawings and series of etchings (Lots 95 and 96). Semiabstract magical symbols and machine-like, yet recognisably organic forms inhibit these compositions. Various kinds of mutants are the constant heroes of Yankilevsky’s works on paper. The artist composed a separate world for them. On the sheet from the “Sodom and Gomorrah” series (Lot 95), among others, there is a woman who is rolling on a wheel and reading a newspaper. Yankilevsky believed that the combination of a newspaper, a political text and the divine feminine was the most fearsome of all.

Notes on symbols:
* Indicates 5% Import Duty Charge applies.
◎ Indicates the lot is located outside the UK. Successful bidders would collect their lots outside the UK after payment.
Ω Indicates 20% Import Duty Charge applies.
§ Indicates Artist's Resale Right applies.
† Indicates Standard VAT scheme applies, and the rate of 20% VAT will be charged on both hammer price and premium.