Vladimir Nemukhin

In the Soviet Union, where Social Realist art was considered the only art acceptable, abstract artists found themselves in an opposition to the official ideology, and in an open confrontation with the state. Vladimir Nemukhin (b.1925), whose art was close to Western European art of the time, was expelled from the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute. But despite the official ban, his oeuvre was of great interest to the younger generation of art lovers, which appeared during the Khrushchev Thaw.

After the experiments with abstract expressionism (1952 -1962), his creativity gradually returned to figuration, he acquired his own style by creating half-abstract ‘still-lifes with cards’. Vladimir Nemukhin spent his entire adult life in Moscow. Impressions of the city have influenced his style, making his imagery more awkward, dis-symmetric and multilayered. Another key object that Nemukhin’s creative search has brought him to is the playing card. A set of cards became a symbol of the mysterious and mystical obscurity, uncertainty of the future. Barely visible under a layer of paint in the very centre of a work, the playing card with its formal properties and deep symbolism holds a central place in Nemukhin’s oeuvre.