Friday, September 11, 2015

Nicholas Vasilieff

 I found a little book on this obscure Russian painter, Vasilieff, at the library this week.  Although he moved to the US in his 30s in 1923 and spent decades here, exhibiting quite a bit, his work does not seem to be around or known much anymore.  

The book shows about half the work as portraits which I don't find to be very good (although I like the way he paints people holding their pets, see last image), the still lives are really bizarre and solid.  A lot of them are reproduced in black and white so I'm not sure how they really look but I like the shapes and contrast.  Although almost none are dated it seems like they were mostly painted in the 50s and 60s.  The book is from the William Benton Museum of Art which had an exhibition of his work in 1977.  Almost 40 years later it would be nice to see his work pulled together again.








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