Angela Summerfield

Luminous landscapes

Oleg Vassiliev: Recent Works <br /> Faggionato Fine Arts, 49 Albemarle Street, London W1, until 23 January 2009

issue 06 December 2008

Oleg Vassiliev: Recent Works
Faggionato Fine Arts, 49 Albemarle Street, London W1, until 23 January 2009

The septuagenarian Russian artist Oleg Vassiliev is exhibiting for the first time in London. Vassiliev was born in Moscow, in 1931, and studied graphic art at the Surikov Art Institute (Moscow State Art Institute), a training which provided him with both an extraordinary technical understanding of the use of pencil, and the means of a livelihood as a book illustrator in Soviet Russia. In the spring and autumn months Vassiliev was able to explore the landscape immediate to Moscow with fellow artists, as well as ideas as to what constituted art. The resultant paintings, though not overtly politically motivated, inevitably fell into the category of ‘unofficial art’ when publicly exhibited; Vassiliev emigrated to the USA in 1990.

Vassiliev’s paintings and drawings have embraced several specifically Russian and international aspects of art practice and its history.

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