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Watercolor on Paper
16 x 12 inches
Behind glass in a 20 3/4 x 17 inch framed
Signed Snegur in Russian Cyrillic lower left. Excellent condition
Igor Snegur (b. 1935), one of contemporary masters of Russian avant-garde. The show unites works created during the half-century of the artist’s creative career: from the early pictures influenced by the Expressionism, to current pieces that reflect the author’s newest ideas.
At different moments, critics classified Snegur either within the second wave of the Russian avant-garde, or within Moscow receptualism — however, the artist’s oeuvre doesn’t fit into the limits of one trend or style. «From Expressionism to Abstractionism» exhibition demonstrates the creative evolution of the artist and the making of his original manner.
Regardless of time and formal framework, Igor Snegur’s paintings keep the unique precision of lines, softness of colour and depth of thought. All his pictures reflect a very special philosophical concept: the careful arrangement of primary geometric forms symbolically embodies the artist’s view of how time and space are mirrored in art.
Igor Snegur speaks of his creation: «I work with the three-dimensional space, which is not very deep, 5-10 cm approximately. However, I can sometimes penetrate deeper — it is like an artist’s journey within the pictorial space. A journey in time and space — this is what painting and its changing forms are».
Igor Snegur joined the artistic flow in the late 1950s, when he took an active part in first abstraction exhibitions in Eliy Belyutin’s Moscow studio. Snegur worked hard and experimented with various genres while studying at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Moscow Polygraphic Institute.
In 1975, Snegur’s works were on view at the notorious avant-garde vernissage in the «Beekeeping» Pavilion of the VDNKh (Exhibition of National Economy Achievements). In the late 1970s, Snegur founded the famous group of «20 Moscow artists» that organized annual shows at Malaya Gruzinskaya Street in 1978-1988.
Snegur’s creative activity was multifaceted from the very start: the artist collaborated in cinema and theatre, engaged in book-making and placard art. In 1988, Snegur opened his «Mars» gallery (the first private art gallery in Moscow), and since 1993 he published the «Art Panorama» magazine. source: Moscow Museum of Modern Art