Anatoly Zverev is a Russian avant-garde artist. Pablo Picasso called him the best Russian draftsman. The artist's works are in the best collections of contemporary art.
In the late sixties, there were legends about a strange man in the capital. He came to diners and painted with a butt, dipped in ketchup, portraits on napkins. Then he sold his work for a song. They added in a whisper that in the West the drawings of the genius dropout were recognized as genius. This was hardly believed. It was about Anatoly Timofeevich Zverev.
Creative choice
His biography began in 1931. The future painter was born in Moscow on November 3. The child's family was far from art, but the boy himself showed early creativity. The boy received his first creative award at the age of four. The painting was called "Street movement". Drawing was taught to him by the famous graphic artist Nikolai Sinitsyn.
Zverev received his education at an art and craft school. Having become a high-class painter for artistic decoration, Zverev worked in the house of pioneers, Sokolniki Park. For the first time they learned about Zverev thanks to the choreographer, dancer and actor Alexander Rumnev.
The pictures he saw in the late forties amazed him. The acquaintance happened when a young painter was painting a fence in Sokolniki Park with fantastic birds using cinnabar, whitewash and a homemade brush. In 1954, Zverev became a student at the Moscow Art School in memory of 1905. He soon left teaching.
In his personal life, changes took place in 1957. Anatoly Timofeevich and Lyudmila Nazarova became husband and wife. The family had two children, a son Misha and a daughter Vera. The marriage broke up. Zverev built a new relationship with Ksenia Sinyakova.
From 1959 to 1962, the artist took part in apartment exhibitions. The artist's personal debut exhibition abroad took place in 1965 at the Paris Motte Gallery, in Geneva. In 1957, an art studio was set up in Gorky Park. Foreigners-abstract painters condescendingly lectured the capital's painters, talking about pure art. They were amazed by the Russian artist, who, with the help of a mop, almost instantly created an exquisite female portrait from stains of paint.
Abroad and at home
The engravings by Anatoly Timofeevich were shown at the Moscow Youth Exhibition held for the VI International Festival of Youth and Students. Since 1959, the reproduction of the artist's works has been published in the news magazine Life. Three watercolors by Zverev's brush were acquired in 1961 by the New York Museum of Modern Art.
The master's exhibitions are held in the capitals of many European countries. In 1984, the only personal exhibition of the painter in his homeland was held. His career became a self-rejection of bureaucracy, general norms and ideas about art.
The influence of his innovation in creativity is palpable to this day. The fifties and sixties became the culmination. Zverev has become the embodiment of the spirit of freedom in contemporary art and one of the leaders of non-conformism. It is extremely difficult to find any historical roots in a creative manner. The master called the great Leonardo da Vinci the teacher. The master could identify any painting in the Tretyakov Gallery only by small fragments.
After the sixties, Anatoly Timofeevich did not paint pictures. However, even for the entertainment of others, he managed to create amazing works. His drawings are distinguished by the expressiveness of strokes, accuracy, lightness, characteristic of the master's graphics. Seated Nude, written by him in the fifties, is recognized as a world-class masterpiece.
Features of creativity
The illustrations for Apulei, Gogol, Cervantes are striking. However, any "doctrinaire" was not for him. Anatoly Timofeevich did not recognize group engagement, although his choice of the path of an underground lone artist remained uncharacteristic. He did not fit into the established communities.
The master's paintings are often faked. He has no definite direction. All canvases are united by style unity, but it is impossible to attribute it to any generally accepted trend. Zverev was called a Russian expressionist. The artist listened to teachings about the need to accurately convey life experiences, where passion was called one of the ways to convey them to the audience.
No less finished painting was carried away by its creation. The painter preferred to improvise, entertaining those around him. He worked with improvised materials: slices of beets, kitchen knives, shaving brushes, fingers. Zverev poured paint on the canvases, smearing it with shoes or rags. In order not to stain others, the place of work had to be fenced off.
Memory of the master
The artist left at least 30 thousand works. Carrying out art criticism to determine their authenticity is complicated by the confusion of schools, the circumstances under which the canvases were created. The only way to determine authenticity is “nobility”.
Anatoly Timofeevich died on December 9, 1986. The artist kept diaries, wrote poetry. They confirm the sharpness of mind, high culture and true aristocracy. A wounded and sincere person was always ready to help his neighbor.
At the same time, loneliness became his conscious choice. He did not fit into creative associations and the system as a whole. The masters were called the Russian Van Gogh, they compared fate with the life of Modigliani and Pirosmani.
The originality and scale of the talent made the artist's name equally significant in culture. In 2013, a private AZ museum was opened in the capital. It features works by the painter from the collection of George Kostaki. Through them, people will be able to recognize the wonderful world of Anatoly Zverev.
