Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 8

Ernst Neizvestny
Lithograph Screenprint Male Heroic Figures

About the Item

Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestny (Russian: Эрнст Ио́сифович Неизве́стный) (born 1925) is a Russian sculptor. He lives and works in New York City. Non Conformist Post Soviet Avant Garde Neizvestny was born 9 April 1925 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). In 1942, at the age of 17, he joined the Red Army as a volunteer. At the close of World War II, he was heavily wounded and sustained a clinical death. Although he was awarded the Order of the Red Star and his mother received an official notification that her son had died, Neizvestny managed to survive. In 1947, Neizvestny was enrolled at the Art Academy of Latvia in Riga. He continued his education at the Surikov Moscow Art Institute and the Philosophy Department of the Moscow State University. His sculptures, often based on the forms of the human body, are noted for their expressionism and powerful plasticity. Although his preferred material is bronze, his larger, monumental installations are often executed in concrete. Most of his works are arranged in extensive cycles, the best known of which is The Tree of Life, a theme he has developed since 1956. Art career Although Nikita Khrushchev famously derided Neizvestny's works as "degenerate" art at the Moscow Manege exhibition of 1962 ("Why do you disfigure the faces of Soviet people?"), the sculptor was later approached by Khruschev's family to design a tomb for the former Soviet leader at the Novodevichy Cemetery. Other well-known works he created during the Soviet period are Prometheus in Artek (1966). During the 1980s, Neizvestny was a visiting lecturer at the University of Oregon and at UC Berkeley. He also worked with Magna Gallery in San Francisco, and had a number of shows which were well-attended in the mid 1980s. This gallery also asked him to create his "Man through the Wall" series to celebrate the end of Communism at the end of the 1980s. Magna Gallery closed at the end of 1992 In 1996, Neizvestny completed his Mask of Sorrow, a 15-meter tall monument to the victims of Soviet purges, situated in Magadan. The same year, he was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation. Although he still lives in New York City and works at Columbia University, Neizvestny frequently visits Moscow and celebrated his 80th birthday there. A museum dedicated to his sculptures was established in Uttersberg, Sweden. Some of his crucifixion statues were acquired by John Paul II for the Vatican Museums. In 2004 Neizvestny became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts. Museum and Public Collections Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jewish Museum, New York Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Washington, D.C. Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina Museum of Art, University of California, Berkeley, California Jane Voohrees Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey United Nations, New York The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow The State Pushkin Museum, Moscow Dostoevsky Museum, Moscow ART4.RU Contemporary Art Museum, Moscow Museum of Fine Arts, Kursk Museum of Fine Arts,Vologda Museum of Fine Arts,Volgograd Museum of Modern Ecclesiastical Art, Vatican, Rome Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden Tree of Life Museum, Uttersberg, Sweden Sven-Olov Anderson’s Torg, Koping, Sweden Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm, Sweden Oslo Municipal Art Collection, Norway Municipality of Oslo Art Collection, Norway Israel Museum, Jerusalem Tel Aviv Museum of Modern Art, Tel Aviv Lvov Gallery, Lvov, Ukraine Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade, Serbia Yerevan Gallery, Yerevan, Armenia Monuments and Public Commissions Lotus Blossom, Aswan Dam, Egypt Tree of Life II, United Nations, New York Bust of Dmitri Shostakovich for the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. Tree of Life, Moscow Prometheus, 15m stainless steel sculpture for Electro-Expo 72 exhibition, Moscow Wings for the Institute of Light Alloys, Moscow Rebirth (Archangel Michael), Moscow Nikita Khrushchev’s tombstone at Novodevichiy Cemetery, Moscow Mask of Mourning, Memorial to the Victims of Stalinism, Magadan, Russia Exodus and Return, Monument to The Kalmykian Deportation, Elista, Kalmykia, Russia 970-meter decorative relief for Institute of Electronics and Technology, Zelenograd, Russia Monument to the Coal Miners, Kemerovo, Russia Monument to Sergei Diaghilev, Perm, Russia Monument to World’s Children, 150-meter decorative relief for Artek Pioneer Camp in the Crimea, Ukraine Golden Child, Odessa, Ukraine Great Centaur, United Nations, Geneva Centaur and Stone Tears, Belgrade, Serbia Mask of Grief, Tombstone for Centaur, Milan, Italy Fragment of Centaur, Vasteras, Sweden
More From This SellerView All
  • The Rabbi 1977 Soviet Non Conformist Avant Garde Print
    By Alek Rapoport
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Dimensions w/Frame: 25 3/4" x 20 3/4" Alek Rapoport (November 24, 1933, Kharkiv, Ukraine SSR – February 4, 1997, San Francisco) was a Russian Nonconformist artist, art theorist and teacher. Alek Rapoport spent his childhood in Kiev (Ukraine SSR). During Stalin's "purges" both his parents were arrested. His father was shot and his mother spent ten years in a Siberian labor camp. Rapoport lived with his aunt. At the beginning of World War II, he was evacuated to the city of Ufa (the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic). A time of extreme loneliness, cold, hunger and deprivation, this period also marked the beginning of Rapoport's drawing studies. After the war, Rapoport lived in Chernovtsy (Western Ukraine), a city with a certain European flair. At the local House of Folk Arts, he found his first art teacher, E.Sagaidachny (1886–1961), a former member of the nonconformist artist groups Union of the Youth (Soyuz Molodyozhi) and Donkey's Tail, popular during the 1910s–1920s. His other art teacher was I. Beklemisheva (1903–1988). Impressed by Rapoport's talent, she later (1950) organized his move to Leningrad, where he entered the famous V.Serov School of Art (the former School of the Imperial Society for the Promotion of Arts, OPKh, later the Tavricheskaya Art School). His association with this school lasted eight years, first as a student, and then, from 1965 to 1968, as a teacher. With "Socialist realism" the only official style during this time, most of the art school's faculty had to conceal any prior involvement in non-conformist art movements. Ya.K.Shablovsky, V.M.Sudakov, A.A.Gromov introduced their students to Constructivism only through clandestine means. (1959–1963) Rapoport studied stage design at the Leningrad Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema under the supervision of the famous artist and stage director N.P.Akimov. Akimov taught a unique course based on theories of Russian Suprematism and Constructivism, while encouraging his graduate students to apply their knowledge to every field of art design. Despite differences in personal artistic taste with Akimov, who was drawn to Vermeer and Dalí, Rapoport was influenced by Akimov's personality and liberalism, as well as the logical style of his art. In 1963, Rapoport graduated from the institute. His highly acclaimed MFA work involved the stage and costume design for I.Babel's play Sunset. In preparation, he traveled to the southwest regions of the Soviet Union, where he accumulated many objects of Judaic iconography from former ghettos, disappearing synagogues and old cemeteries. He wandered Odessa in search of Babel's characters and the atmosphere of his books. He organized a new liberal course in technical aesthetics, introducing his students to Lotman's theory of semiotics, the Modulor of Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus school, Russian Constructivism, Russian icons and contemporary Western art. As a result of his "radicalism," Rapoport was fired for "ideological conspiracy." He sought to cultivate himself as Jewish artist. This became particularly noticeable after the Six-Day War, when the Israeli victory led intellectuals, including the Jewish intelligentsia, to feel a heightened interest in Jewish culture and its Biblical roots. Rapoport's works of this period include Three Figures, a series of images of Talmudic Scholars, and works dealing with anti-Semitism. In the 1970s Rapoport joined the non-conformist movement, which opposed the dogmas of "Socialist realism" in art, along with Soviet censorship. The movement sought to preserve the traditions of Russian iconography and the Constructivist/Suprematist style of the 1910s. Despite the authorities' persecutions of nonconformist artists (including arrests, forced evictions, terminations of employment, and various forms of routine hassling), they united in a group, "TEV – Fellowship of Experimental Exhibitions." TEV's exhibitions proved tremendously successful. In the same period, Rapoport became one of the initiators of another anti-establishment group, ALEF (Union of Leningrad's Jewish Artists). In the United States this group was known as "Twelve from the Soviet Underground." Rapoport's involvement with this group increased tension with the authorities and attracted KGB scrutiny, including "friendly conversations," surveillance, detentions and house arrests. It became increasingly dangerous for him to live and work in the USSR. In October 1976, Rapoport with his wife and son were forced to leave Russia. In Italy, Rapoport exhibited at the Venice Biennale, "La Nuova Arte Sovietica-Una prospettiva non-ufficiale" (1977), participated in television programs about nonconformist art in the Soviet Union, and created lithographic works continuing his theme of Jewish characters from Babel's play Sunset. In 1977, Rapoport's family was granted U.S. immigration status and settled in San Francisco. a significant event in Rapoport's life occurred in his meeting with San Francisco gallery owner Michael Dunev, who became his friend and representative, organizing all his exhibitions until the artist's death. Toward the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, Rapoport completed his most ambitious works on the theme of the Old Testament prophets: Samson Destroying the House of the Philistines (1989), Lamentation and Mourning and Woe (1990), the four paintings Angel and Prophets (1990–1991) and Three Deeds of Moses (1992). In 1992, the artist's friends in St. Petersburg organized the first exhibition of his works there since his departure into exile, with works patiently gathered from collectors and art museums. This exhibition, held in the City Museum of St. Petersburg and accompanied by headlines such as "A St. Petersburg artist returns to his town," was followed by much larger ones in 1993 (St. Petersburg and Moscow), organized in collaboration with Michael Dunev Gallery under the name California Branches – Russian Roots. He Exhibited in "Soviet Artists, Jewish Themes...
    Category

    1970s Post-Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • The Talmudists Post Soviet Non Conformist Avant Garde Judaica Lithograph
    By Alek Rapoport
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Dimensions w/Frame: 18.5 X 14.5 Alek Rapoport (November 24, 1933, Kharkiv, Ukraine SSR – February 4, 1997, San Francisco) was a Russian Nonconformist artist, art theorist and teacher. Alek Rapoport spent his childhood in Kiev (Ukraine SSR). During Stalin's "purges" both his parents were arrested. His father was shot and his mother spent ten years in a Siberian labor camp. Rapoport lived with his aunt. At the beginning of World War II, he was evacuated to the city of Ufa (the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic). A time of extreme loneliness, cold, hunger and deprivation, this period also marked the beginning of Rapoport's drawing studies. After the war, Rapoport lived in Chernovtsy (Western Ukraine), a city with a certain European flair. At the local House of Folk Arts, he found his first art teacher, E.Sagaidachny (1886–1961), a former member of the nonconformist artist groups Union of the Youth (Soyuz Molodyozhi) and Donkey's Tail, popular during the 1910s–1920s. His other art teacher was I. Beklemisheva (1903–1988). Impressed by Rapoport's talent, she later (1950) organized his move to Leningrad, where he entered the famous V.Serov School of Art (the former School of the Imperial Society for the Promotion of Arts, OPKh, later the Tavricheskaya Art School). His association with this school lasted eight years, first as a student, and then, from 1965 to 1968, as a teacher. With "Socialist realism" the only official style during this time, most of the art school's faculty had to conceal any prior involvement in non-conformist art movements. Ya.K.Shablovsky, V.M.Sudakov, A.A.Gromov introduced their students to Constructivism only through clandestine means. (1959–1963) Rapoport studied stage design at the Leningrad Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema under the supervision of the famous artist and stage director N.P.Akimov. Akimov taught a unique course based on theories of Russian Suprematism and Constructivism, while encouraging his graduate students to apply their knowledge to every field of art design. Despite differences in personal artistic taste with Akimov, who was drawn to Vermeer and Dalí, Rapoport was influenced by Akimov's personality and liberalism, as well as the logical style of his art. In 1963, Rapoport graduated from the institute. His highly acclaimed MFA work involved the stage and costume design for I.Babel's play Sunset. In preparation, he traveled to the southwest regions of the Soviet Union, where he accumulated many objects of Judaic iconography from former ghettos, disappearing synagogues and old cemeteries. He wandered Odessa in search of Babel's characters and the atmosphere of his books. He organized a new liberal course in technical aesthetics, introducing his students to Lotman's theory of semiotics, the Modulor of Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus school, Russian Constructivism, Russian icons and contemporary Western art. As a result of his "radicalism," Rapoport was fired for "ideological conspiracy." He sought to cultivate himself as Jewish artist. This became particularly noticeable after the Six-Day War, when the Israeli victory led intellectuals, including the Jewish intelligentsia, to feel a heightened interest in Jewish culture and its Biblical roots. Rapoport's works of this period include Three Figures, a series of images of Talmudic Scholars, and works dealing with anti-Semitism. In the 1970s Rapoport joined the non-conformist movement, which opposed the dogmas of "Socialist realism" in art, along with Soviet censorship. The movement sought to preserve the traditions of Russian iconography...
    Category

    1970s Post-Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Vintage Russian Ukrainian Soldiers in Forest Scene Judaica Lithograph Jewish Art
    By Anatoli Lvovich Kaplan
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Pencil signed and dated, Russian Soviet Judaica Lithograph. Anatoli Lwowitch Kaplan was a Russian painter, sculptor and printmaker, whose works often reflect his Jewish origins. His...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Israeli Naive Art Screen Print Lithograph Jerusalem, Sanhedrin Old City Folk Art
    By Gabriel Cohen
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Bold color lithograph, hand signed in pencil and numbered AP IX/X (artist’s proof 9/10), Jerusalem Print Workshop blind stamp lower right. On French Arches paper. Gabriel Cohen, Self taught, Naive painter was born in Paris in 1933, to parents from Jerusalem with a father who studied the kabbalah. Throughout World War II, the family hid from the Nazis in Paris. Images of Nazi soldiers appear in several of his paintings. In 1949, when Gabriel was 16, the family returned to Israel. They managed to save enough money to move back to the quarter where both parents were born: Ohel Moshe in Nachlaot. Gabriel served in the artillery corps and after the army, went back to live in his parents' house and earned a living polishing diamonds. The head of the polishing plant, who noticed his employee's artistic skill, allowed him to paint during work hours. He once asked Cohen if he could draw a tiger. Cohen drew him a tiger. And he did a lot of sculpting and painting on glass. He also loved to play the guitar, especially flamenco style. Critics say he is one of Israel's greatest naive-style painters. Along with Shalom of Safed, Kopel Gurwin and Natan Heber, He is renowned as one of Israel's greatest living naive-style folk art painters, recipient of the Jerusalem Prize for Art (1987), a permanent entry in encyclopedias of naive painting, who exhibited his work not only in Israel, but also in Paris, Venezuela, Denmark and Germany; the same Gabriel Cohen whose colorful , bold paintings were exhibited at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1987 alongside works by Marc Chagall; the same Gabriel Cohen about whom curator and art scholar Gideon Ofrat says, "There is no questioning his greatness." He has shown in Paris on the Rue de Rosiers in the Marais. His impressions of his journeys, mostly imaginary, yet some real, are expressed in Cohen's paintings. Huge, colorful canvases rich in precise detail and fantasy, in which he paints the Eiffel Tower and the Russian steppes or the vistas of Paris and the Tower of Babel "In my opinion, it's also because the Tower of Babel has some kind of phallic, erotic meaning, but also because of the internationalism, of the mixture and confusion of nations, which is an essential element in Gabi Cohen's work," says Gideon Ofrat. There is no superlative that has not been lavished on Cohen's work by art critics, since he began showing his paintings at age 40, All the art critics seemed to agree at once that Cohen is one of the greatest naive-style painters in Israel. Their counterparts abroad seconded this view. About a year and a half ago, Zadka organized a show for Cohen at the Jerusalem Artists' House. The Tel Aviv Museum bought a painting of Gabi's and so did the Israel Museum, and several artists bought his drawings. He is a great, great painter. There is no painter who is more of a symbolist and illustrative artist than he is. As a painter myself, I admire him." The Yom Kippur War in 1973 sparked an artistic breakthrough for Cohen; it was at that time that he began to sit on the sidewalk after his work as a diamond polisher and paint. Not long afterward, in early 1974, he did a painting he called "Moses on the Mountain." Ruth Debel, of the Debel Gallery in Ein Kerem, passed by and saw it on the street. She asked how much he wanted for it, and for the first time in his life, he realized that his work had financial value. His first show was at the Debel Gallery in 1974. The response was overwhelming. Cohen was immediately declared a genius. His paintings at the gallery were purchased and he continued to create new paintings. That same year, he was invited to take part in a group exhibition of naive artists at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, and a year later, his work was included in a traveling show of naive-style artists from Israel that was exhibited in Denmark and Germany. Soon after that he was invited to be part of group shows in Venezuela and at the Tel Aviv Museum. Cohen had four solo shows at the Debel Gallery. Awards And Prizes 1987 Jerusalem Prize for Painting and Sculpture 1999 Shoshana Ish-Shalom Prize for special contribution to art, Jerusalem He has exhibited alngside all of the Israeli great artists. including Naive Art Group exhibition Gvanim Art Gallery, Jerusalem Rubin, Rachel Roman, Yitzhak Zarembo, Leah Moscovitz, Shalom (of Safed) Steinberg, Michael Danisov, Salva Harbon, Haim Cohen, Gabriel Chanannia, Joseph (Jojo) Local Hero...
    Category

    20th Century Folk Art Landscape Prints

    Materials

    Screen, Lithograph

  • Ohio Art Modern Americana Patriotic Lithograph American Flag Attentive Patriots
    By Sid Chafetz
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Sidney Chafetz Print Catalogue Raisonné. Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio. Medium: Lithograph. Print Image Size: 21 3/4 x 26 1/4 inches. Print Edition: 10. This is not signed or number...
    Category

    1990s Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Archival Paper, Lithograph

  • Columbus Ohio State Judaica Lithograph Jewish Americana Family Reunion Portrait
    By Sid Chafetz
    Located in Surfside, FL
    On deckle edged art paper. This is from a large collection of his pieces. This is not pencil signed and numbered. very small edition. Sid Chafetz (1922-) Born in Providence Rhod...
    Category

    1990s Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Archival Paper, Lithograph

You May Also Like
  • Will Rogers, Caricature Lithograph by Al Hirschfeld
    By Albert Al Hirschfeld
    Located in Long Island City, NY
    Will Rogers Al Hirschfeld, American (1903–2003) Date: 1991 Lithograph, signed in pencil Edition: Printer's Proof Size: 20.5 x 26 in. (52.07 x 66.04 cm)
    Category

    1990s Post-Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • “Untitled”
    By Jean Dufy
    Located in Southampton, NY
    Original lithographic print done as a gravure using black ink attributed to the hand of the well known French artist, Jean Dufy. Signed in the plate “Dufy” lower right. Circa 1960. Condition is very good. “Pierre Hautot...
    Category

    1960s Post-Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph, Archival Paper

  • Philippe Noyer Le Singe 1980 A Signed Limited Edition
    By Philippe Henri Noyer
    Located in Rochester Hills, MI
    Artist Name: Philippe Noyer Title: Le Singe: Medium Type: Lithograph Size-Width Size-Height: 35" x 25" Signed Edition Size: signed in pencil and marked EA XVII/XXX Unframed in...
    Category

    1980s Post-Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Card Players (Derriere le Miroir # 212)
    By Alexander Calder
    Located in Washington, DC
    Alexander Calder Card Players (Derriere le Miroir # 212) Artist: Alexander Calder Medium: Original lithograph in colors Title: Card Players Portfolio: Derriere le Miroir #212 Year: 1...
    Category

    1970s Post-Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Desiree Calderon
    By Agent X
    Located in Kansas City, MO
    Agent X Title : Desiree Calderon Year: 2019 Medium: Digital Print Signed Edition: 125 70 x 70 inches Agent X, cultural explorer and agent of the unknown, is an emerging artist who c...
    Category

    2010s Post-Modern Prints and Multiples

    Materials

    Lithograph, Offset

  • Neil Young, Caricature Lithograph by Al Hirschfeld
    By Albert Al Hirschfeld
    Located in Long Island City, NY
    Al Hirschfeld’s Rock'n in the Free World Neil Young. This print is signed and numbered in pencil. Al Hirschfeld, American (1903–2003) Date: 2000 Lithograph, signed and numbered in p...
    Category

    Early 2000s Post-Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

Recently Viewed

View All