66 - ANATOLY SLEPYSHEV (RUSSIAN 1932-2016)

ANATOLY SLEPYSHEV (RUSSIAN 1932-2016) Sunset in Siberia, 1988 oil on canvas 96.7 x 129.3 cm (38 1/8 x 50 7/8 in.) framed dimensions: 98.1 x 131 cm (38 5/8 x 51 5/8 in.) signed in Cyrillic and dated '1988' lower center; PROVENANCE Private Collection, Connecticut Acquired from the above by the present owner EXHIBITED Forbidden Art: The Postwar Russian Avant-Garde, organized by Curatorial Assistance, Inc., checklist no. 61; touring to ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, 1998; State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 1999; State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, 1999; Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, Ohio, 1999; McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2000; Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, 2005; University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, 2007; Hillstrom Museum of Art, Gustavus Adolphus College, 2008 LITERATURE Garrett White, ed., Forbidden Art: The Postwar Russian Avant-Garde (Los Angeles: Curatorial Assistance; New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 1998), ex. cat., p. 278 (illustrated) LOT NOTES Born in the village of Lopatino in the Penza region, Anatoly Slepyshev grew up in the Urals and trained at the art college in Nizhny Tagil before entering the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow, where he studied in the workshop of Alexander Deineka. After Khrushchev's 1962 attack on modern art at the Manege, Deineka's students came under pressure, and Slepyshev's work was criticized on political grounds; he worked largely outside official channels, showing in private apartments and, from 1990, extensively in France. Painted in 1988, Sunset in Siberia is a characteristic late-Soviet work of his expressionist maturity: dark masses of forest are built up in thick, scraped impasto against a sky blazing red and yellow, the paint itself carrying the drama of the northern landscape. The painting was among the works chosen for Forbidden Art, the landmark survey of Soviet nonconformist art that travelled from Pasadena to the Tretyakov Gallery and the State Russian Museum before touring American university museums. Keywords: Anatoly Slepyshev, Soviet Nonconformist Art, Forbidden Art Exhibition, Russian Expressionist Landscape, Siberian Sunset, Tretyakov Gallery Exhibited N.B. Condition reports are available upon request. All lots are sold in as-is condition at the time of sale. Please note that any condition statement regarding works of art is given as a courtesy to our clients in order to assist them in assessing the condition. The report is a genuine opinion held by Shapiro Auctions & Appraisals LLC and should not be treated as a statement of fact. The absence of a condition report or a photograph does not preclude the absence of defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. Shapiro Auctions & Appraisals, LLC., including its consultants and agents, shall have no responsibility for any error or omission.