Oleg Vassiliev (painter)

Russian painter
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Oleg Vassiliev (Олег Владимирович Васильев; November 4, 1931; Moscow – January 25, 2013) was a Russian painter associated with the Soviet Nonconformist Art style. Vassiliev emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York City in 1990 and later lived and worked in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Vassiliev graduated from V. I. Surikov State Art Institute, Moscow, in 1958. In the late 1950s he became influenced by the Russian avant garde formalists, Vladimir Favorsky (1886–1964), Robert Falk (1886–1958), and Artur Fonvizin (1883–1973).

From the 1950s through the 1980s, Vassiliev worked with friend and collaborator Erik Bulatov as a children's book illustrator. They developed a unique style of illustration that combined realist painting with graphic elements, such as text. This "official" source of income provided the means and materials for Vassiliev to take part in the Soviet Nonconformist Art movement, also known as "unofficial" or "dissident" art. Along with friends, Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov and Viktor Pivovarov, Vassiliev belonged to a large group of Soviet artists that took advantage of the Nikita Khrushchev "thaw" in official policy that opened up the Soviet Union to Western culture in the years following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953.

During this period of time Vassiliev developed his mature style. In his art Vassiliev combines the traditions of Russian Realism (art movement) of the 19th century with the Russian avant garde of the beginning of the 20th century. "Vassiliev's principal themes, which were born while he was in Russia and continue to the present day, are his memories of home and houses, roads, forests, fields, friends and family. Vassiliev always starts his creative process from a very personal memory, from his sacred space, the safeguarded inner center, and connects it with the visual image. Vassiliev masterfully incorporates elements from different times and spaces and arranges them throughout his paintings according to the logic and 'energetic' space of the painting." "Leading Soviet graphic artist Vladimir Favorsky was a major influence on Vassiliev's work. Favorsky emphasised the constructive qualities of image making, understanding painting as a rhythmic organisation of space swirling about time. Such abstract aesthetic thought was alien to mainstream Soviet Realism and demonstrates the liberties afforded graphic designers during this period. With a preoccupation for the structural qualities of a composition, these aesthetics also find their origin in Russian Constructivism of the 1920s.

" Vassiliev's recurring preoccupation with light and shade in his oeuvre also points to a psychological dimension, with light symbolising consciousness and dark, the subconscious. Elements of German Romanticism influence his thought. He searches for answers in an unfathomable world, posing questions without obvious answers and leaving the viewer feeling nonplussed, a hallmark of Postmodernist art "

2013: The House with the Mezzanine Part 2 Lecture by Dr. Alla Rosenfeld at Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA, USA. (Click link to watch: )

2013: The House with the Mezzanine Part 1, Lecture by Dr. Maria Zavialova at Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA, USA. (Click link to watch: )

2012: Oleg Vassiliev, Exhibition Video, by The Museum of Russian Art, Twin Cities Public Television, Inc, Minneapolis, MN, USA. (Click link to watch: )

2009: The Russian Concept, Documentary Video, by Igor Sopronenko, Signature Media Production LLC, Lexington, KY, USA. (Click link to watch: )

2006: Oleg Vassiliev, Interview in Russian (excerpt from Russian Concept), by Igor Sopronenko, Signature Media Production LLC, Lexington, KY, USA. (Click link to watch: )

1990: USSR Art, Documentary Video, by Barbara Herbich, Direct Cinema LTD., Santa Monica, CA, USA.