03 October - 15 December 2009. Yaroslavl Art Museum
27 February - 07 March 2010. XXVIII Russian Antique Salon,
Central House of Artists
April - September 2010. Gallery
2.36
The project catalogue comprises over 600 works by
235 Russian and European Artists
There is a certain paradox about graphic art. On the one hand, it is the most popular of fine arts. Every one of us comes across instruments and techniques used in graphic arts at school, in one’s work and leisure time. As book illustrations or design of book covers, labels and posters, graphic arts are inseparable from our daily and social life. Even though graphic works (sketches, studies or projects) have virtually always played a secondary role compared to other types of fine arts, they are a fairly independent medium, with their own objectives and specific techniques. Graphic works of any artist reveal to the utmost extent his or her craftsmanship and professionalism: an artist unable to draw is absolute nonsense. Many artists devoted their lives entirely to graphic art and nevertheless found a worthy place among the great masters.
On the other hand, graphic art is obviously a terra incognita. Few people nowadays are familiar with writings of Prof. B.P.Vipper. And even fewer people from among those who think they are connoisseurs – to say nothing of ordinary mortals – are capable of pinpointing the technique in which one graphic work or another has been done.
In private collections, too, graphic works are often assigned the part of a Cinderella. Few collectors have focused exclusively on graphic works. And those who have were genuine experts, who had exhaustive knowledge of every technique and material used and who could speak for hours about the specifics of the execution of every piece. Hardly anyone can compare today to expert collectors of graphic works, such as N.S.Mosolov, D.A.Rovinsky, N.V.Basnin, S.Y.Varshavsky, S.Y.Feldstein or M.V.Ratz. New collectors are so much more concerned with the investment value of their collections and disregard the tremendous realm of graphic works.
With the present publication we would like to change, if only slightly, the existing status quo and draw public attention to the 20th-century Russian and European graphic art. We have focused exclusively on black-and-white graphic works that make it possible to lay bare the artistic effect of this genre, which boils down to a specific conflict between plane and space, and between three-dimensional representation and the pure white surface of a paper sheet. Incidentally, it is precisely graphic art that makes it absolutely clear that art knows no borders and develops according to its own laws. New tendencies, artistic styles and trends appear and develop in parallel in different national cultures practically simultaneously and irrespective of the existence of the Iron Curtains or Berlin Walls, be they prints of the 1920s and 1930s or artworks of the 1950s and 1960s. The artists presented in this project have different standing: some have long been recognized as world classics, while others are so far known to but a narrow circle of specialists. Yet, if we ignore ranks and regalia, we see that they are all links of a single chain.
