On August 9, 2016, the talented and ingenious sculptor passed away - Ernst Neizvestny, who created more than 850 sculptures over the entire period of his work, many of which became famous not only in the territory of the former USSR, but throughout the world.
Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestny was born April 9, 1925 in Sverdlovsk in the family of an otolaryngologist and a poetess. His mother also wrote popular science books for children and was a chemist by profession.
From the age of 14, Ernst took part in All-Union competitions for children and youth creativity. In 1942 he began studying at Leningrad Art School at the All-Russian Academy of Arts.
At the end of the summer of 1942. was drafted into the army and took part in hostilities during the Great Patriotic War until the spring of 1945.
Has awards:
After being seriously wounded in Austria on April 22, 1945, Ernst Neizvestny was hospitalized and was pronounced dead some time later.
From personal memories:
“I was wounded very seriously, an explosive bullet pierced my chest, knocked out three ribs, three intervertebral discs, and tore the pleura. I only found out much later that I was almost Rambo, because I killed twelve fascists. And it was hand-to-hand combat, face to face in the trenches. Well, naturally, I began to die.
While they were transporting me, the Germans were bombing with all their might, I was also hit by a blast wave, and I also suffered from concussion. So, in the end, I was all in plaster, completely insane.
And at some point I was considered dead and taken to the basement. One day the orderlies, young boys, dragged me away. But it’s hard, they awkwardly threw me off - why take the dead into account?! And then something happened to the plaster, it moved, and I screamed. They resuscitated me..."
The work of the third year student at the Surikov School of Ernst Neizvestny received an international medal and was acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery. Fifth year work - "Kremlin Builder Fyodor Kon" was nominated for the Stalin Prize and purchased by the Russian Museum.
In 1954-1962, Neizvestny participated in youth republican and all-Union exhibitions in Moscow, among them:
In 1955, Ernst Neizvestny became a member of the sculptors section of the Moscow branch of the Union of Artists of the USSR and until 1976 was engaged in artistic activities in the USSR.
In the early 1950s. Ernst Neizvestny created a series of sculptures "War is...", "Robots and semi-robots", created entire albums of drawings under the general title "Gigantomachy, or the Battle of the Giants".
In 1956, the artist began work on the architectural monument "Tree of Life"- a giant sculpture symbolizing the creative union of art and science. This project, according to the sculptor, is the main business of his life.
In 1957, Unknown creates a statue that has become famous - "Dead Soldier". This is a lying figure with an almost decayed face, a huge hole in the chest and a ossified hand extended forward and still convulsively clenched into a fist - a man whose last gesture still symbolizes struggle, movement forward.
Next, he creates images that are sharply different from the usual easel sculpture of those years - “Suicide” (1958), “Adam” (1962-1963), “Effort” (1962), “Mechanical Man” (1961-1962), “Two-Headed giant with an egg" (1963), a figure of a seated woman with a human fetus in the womb (1961).
In 1959, Ernst Neizvestny won the All-Union competition to create a monument to Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
In 1961, the first personal exhibition of Unknown took place in the Moscow club “Friendship”. In 1962, he participated in the famous exhibition at the Manege “30 years of the Moscow Union of Artists”, which was destroyed by Nikita Khrushchev, who called his sculptures “degenerate art”:
- Why do you distort the faces of Soviet people like that?
Since 1965, he has repeatedly participated in art exhibitions in the West.
The most significant work of Neizvestny in the Soviet period is the decorative relief “Prometheus” (150 m long) in the All-Union Pioneer Camp “Artek” (1966) and “Lotus Flower” (87 m high), built at the Aswan Dam in Egypt (1971).
In 1970, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” with illustrations by Ernst Neizvestny was published.
For his work, Neizvestny was criticized by the then head of the Soviet Union N. S. Khrushchev, who in 1962 at an exhibition called his sculptures “degenerate art.”
Later, at the request of the relatives of the former head of state, Ernst Neizvestny created a tombstone monument to N. S. Khrushchev at the Novodevichy cemetery. The sculptor did not take a penny for his work. And he threw a wad of banknotes forcibly thrust into him from the son of the former secretary general out of the car window as he walked: “Let Moscow remember Nikita...”
In 1974 he performs a huge relief ( 970 m²) in the building of the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology in Zelenograd.
In 1973-1975 An unknown person creates an eight-meter-tall “Heart of Christ” monument for a monastery in Poland.
In 1975, Ernst Neizvestny created a bas-relief on the building of the archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan in Ashgabat. This was the last work in the Soviet Union before emigration. Now this is one of the buildings State Archive.
From the beginning of the sixties until his departure, the sculptor created more than 850 sculptures - these are the cycles “Strange Births”, “Centaurs”, “Construction of Man”, “Crucifixions”, “Masks” and others. Neizvestny spent almost all the money he earned working as a mason or restoring the reliefs of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior, located in the Donskoy Monastery, on his sculptures.
Of his 850 sculptures, only 4 were purchased from him.. Criminal cases were brought against him: he was accused of currency fraud and espionage. He was constantly beaten, glass was poured into the clay, after which he received multiple cuts and could not work for a long time.
In 1983, Ernst Neizvestny was elected professor of humanities at the University of Oregon (USA), professor of philosophy at Columbia University. In 1986 he was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the New York Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1989 Neizvestny became a member of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities.
In the late 1980s, commissioned by the Magna Gallery in San Francisco (USA), Neizvestny created the series “Man through the Wall,” which was dedicated to the collapse of communism. During these same years, Neizvestny lectured at the University of Oregon in Eugene and at the University of Berkeley in California.
In 1987, in the Swedish city of Uttersberg (Swedish: Uttersberg) opened Tree of Life Museum, dedicated to the works of Ernst Neizvestny.
In 1989, he came to Moscow and gave lectures on culture at Moscow State University. He was invited to design a monument to the victims of the Holocaust in Riga and a monument to the victims of Stalinism in Vorkuta. In the same year, a feature-journalistic film about Ernst Neizvestny was shot “Is the sighted person responsible for the blind?”.
In 1990, he designed a monument to Andrei Sakharov. In October 1990 he signed the “Roman Appeal”. In the same year, it was founded in Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) Ernst Neizvestny Museum.
In 1991, Ernst Neizvestny came to Russia to work on a memorial to the victims of Stalinism in Vorkuta and Yekaterinburg.
In 1994, based on his sketches, the main prize of the All-Russian television competition TEFI was created - Orpheus figurine. And also: the prize of the Russian independent award "Triumph" - the Golden Elf figurine, and the prize figurine of the people's award "Bright Past" in the form of a symbolic image of the Centaur, which is awarded in Chelyabinsk to famous South Urals residents.
In 1996, Neizvestny completed his monumental (15 meters high) work "Mask of Sorrow", dedicated to the victims of repression in the Soviet Union. This sculpture was installed in Magadan.
In December 1997, a sculpture by Ernst Neizvestny "Great Centaur" was donated to the UN European Headquarters in Geneva and is installed in Ariane Park, which surrounds the Palais des Nations.
In April 2000, the artist’s first sculpture was unveiled in Moscow - "Renaissance". In 2003, a monument was opened in Kemerovo on the banks of the Tom River "Memory to the miners of Kuzbass" works by Ernst Neizvestny.
In October 2004, Ernst Neizvestny “planted” his “Tree of Life” in Moscow - in the lobby of the Bagration shopping and pedestrian bridge. This is a seven-meter spreading “Tree of Life”, in the crown of which you can see a Christian crucifix and a Mobius strip, portraits of Buddha and Yuri Gagarin, the plot of expulsion from paradise and esoteric symbols.
Ernst Neizvestny created sculptural compositions that decorated many cities around the world - the sculpture “Exodus and Return” in Elista (dedicated to the deportation of Kalmyks), “Golden Child” in Odessa.
Sculptural compositions of the Unknown, expressing his expression and powerful plasticity, were often composed of parts of the human body. He preferred to create sculptures in bronze, but his monumental sculptures were created in concrete.
Awards and prizes for the work of Ernst Neizvestny:
Since 1977, the sculptor lived in New York and worked at Columbia University. He celebrated his 80th birthday in Russia.
Life story
Unknown was born in Sverdlovsk on April 9, 1925. His mother named him Eric. And only in 1941, just before the war, when receiving a passport, he wrote down his full name - Ernst. His grandfather was a merchant, his father was a white officer, Antonov’s adjutant. Later he was a pediatrician, an otolaryngologist, and also worked as a surgeon. When the Reds arrived, they were supposed to shoot my grandfather and father. But the grandmother remembered that the grandfather secretly printed communist brochures in his printing house. Then she found these documents and presented them to the Bolsheviks. No one was shot.
His mother, Baroness Bella Dijour, a purebred Jew and Christian, was still alive in the mid-nineties and published her poems in one of the New York newspapers.
Ernst, as a boy, had a reputation as a notorious hooligan. Having credited himself with an extra year, already at the age of seventeen, Ernst graduated from a military school - an accelerated graduation. There, during the war, Lieutenant Neizvestny received a death sentence from the tribunal, which was replaced by a penal battalion. And there, during the Great Patriotic War, he received several military awards and wounds. One of them was very severe; three intervertebral discs were knocked out, seven suturings of the diaphragm, complete suturing of the lungs, open pneumothorax... Unknown was saved by a brilliant Russian doctor, whose name he never learned - this was in a field hospital. After the war, the former officer walked on crutches for three years, with a broken spine, injected himself with morphine, struggling with terrible pain, and even began to stutter.
Then Neizvestny studied at the Academy of Arts in Riga and at the Moscow Surikov Institute. In parallel with these studies, he attended lectures at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University.
Having received his diploma in 1954, a year later he became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, and a little later - a laureate of the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow for the sculpture “No to Nuclear War!” Already at that time, his attraction to the “grand style” was evident - the emphasized pathos and bright mythology of each sculpture.
In 1957, Neizvestny performed the statue that became famous - “Dead Soldier”. This is a lying figure with an almost decayed face, a huge hole in the chest and a ossified hand extended forward and still convulsively clenched into a fist - a man whose last gesture still symbolizes struggle, movement forward.
Next, he creates images that are sharply different from the usual easel sculpture of those years - “Suicide” (1958), “Adam” (1962-1963), “Effort” (1962), “Mechanical Man” (1961-1962), “Two-Headed giant with an egg" (1963), a figure of a seated woman with a human fetus in the womb (1961).
In 1962, at an exhibition dedicated to the thirtieth anniversary of the Moscow Union of Artists, Neizvestny quite deliberately agreed to be N.S.’s guide. Khrushchev. He had no doubt about his right to primacy in art. And he always had enough courage. However, the result of the meeting did not live up to his hopes.
It was not exhibited for several years. But after Khrushchev’s removal, the temporary disgrace ended. Unknown began to travel abroad and receive serious government orders. For example, in 1966 he created the decorative relief “Prometheus” for the Artek pioneer camp, 150 meters long. True, he was not awarded any prizes. Nevertheless, his fame gradually grew in Europe and the USA, and collectors began to purchase his works. And exhibitions, which were held in small halls of research institutes, became events.
“Returning to the works of the 60s, I would like to say about two more of them,” writes N.V. Voronov. - This is, firstly, “Orpheus” (1962-1964). Song of loneliness. A muscular man on his knees, pressing one arm bent at the elbow to his thrown back head in a gesture of some inexpressible grief, hopelessness and melancholy, and tearing his chest with the other. The theme of human suffering and despair is expressed here with some almost impossible force. Deformation, exaggeration, exaggeration - everything here works for the image, and the torn chest screams with a bloody cry about loneliness, about the impossibility of living in this dungeon of life without faith, without love, without hope. It seems to me that this is one of the most powerful works of the Unknown of the 60s, perhaps less philosophical, addressed more to our feelings, to direct perception. Probably less dialogic compared to other works, closer to the usual idea of realism, but nevertheless one of the most expressive.
And the second is “The Prophet” (1962-1966). This is a kind of plastic illustration of Neizvestny’s own thoughts expressed in the same years. He wrote: “My favorite work remains Pushkin’s poem “The Prophet,” and the best sculptor I know is, perhaps, the six-winged seraph from the same poem.”
In 1971, Neizvestny won the competition for designs for a monument in honor of the opening of the Aswan Dam in Egypt - with the Friendship of Peoples monument, 87 meters high. Other major works in the first half of the seventies were the eight-meter “Heart of Christ” monument for a monastery in Poland (1973-1975) and a 970-meter decorative relief for the Moscow Institute of Electronics and Technology (1974).
The year 1974 became a kind of milestone in his work; the sculptor created a monument on Khrushchev’s grave, which became his last major work installed in his homeland before emigration.
“This tombstone,” notes N.V. Voronov, “quickly became popular, because in a concentrated artistic form it conveyed the essence of Khrushchev’s activities and views. On a small dais, in a somewhat unusual, powerful marble frame, stood a surprisingly similar bronze gilded head of Nikita Sergeevich, moreover, sculpted simply and humanely, not at all with that touch of “leadership” that we are accustomed to on the numerous monuments to great people standing in almost every city . There is a special meaning in the marble blocks surrounding this head. The peculiar frame was made in such a way that one half of it was white and the other was black...”
The sculptor did not want to emigrate. But he was not given work in the USSR, he was not allowed to work in the West. From the beginning of the sixties until his departure, the sculptor created more than 850 sculptures - these are the cycles “Strange Births”, “Centaurs”, “Construction of Man”, “Crucifixions”, “Masks” and others.
Neizvestny spent almost all the money he earned working as a mason or restoring the reliefs of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior, located in the Donskoy Monastery, on his sculptures.
Of his 850 sculptures, only 4 were purchased from him! Criminal cases were brought against him, he was accused of currency fraud and espionage. Moreover, Unknown was constantly met by strange people on the street and beaten, with his ribs, fingers, and nose broken. Unknown applied 67 times to be allowed to go to the West to build with Niemeyer. They didn't let me in. And then he decides to leave Russia altogether - on March 10, 1976, the sculptor left his homeland.
When Neizvestny found himself in Europe, Chancellor Kreisky gave him an Austrian passport, and the government gave him one of the best studios in the country. But the sculptor moves from Austria to Switzerland to Paul Sachar (Schönenbert), one of the richest people in the world. He bought the sculptor a barracks in Basel for a new studio. His wife Maya Sahar, also a sculptor, idolized the Unknown. She gave him her studio with all the instruments, with the entire library.
“To these people,” says Neizvestny, “Picasso and Henry Moore came to bow to them. Meeting Paul Sachar was like meeting the Lord God. And Saint Peter, who opened the door of heaven, turned out to be Slava Rostropovich. Slava Rostropovich even wrote a book, “Thank you, Paul,” about how Paul brought many of today’s greats into the world. And so I found myself in the face of the career Lord God. But I took it and left, for my own reasons. I couldn't stand living in a rich man's house.....
...In 1976 I came to America, and literally the next day the opening of my work, a bust of Shostakovich, took place at the Kennedy Center. There were great articles and TV shows. Alex Lieberman and Andy Warhol took care of me. I was very friendly with Warhol. He owns the phrase “Khrushchev is an average politician of the era of Ernst the Unknown.”
A wonderful friend, Slava Rostropovich, who had received a huge package of social connections over many years, generously handed them all over to me. Presidents, kings, major critics, artists, politicians. Having connected to this social life, I very soon realized that it was not for me. You come to the “party”, they hand you twenty business cards, you are obliged to respond. Communication is growing exponentially. The lonely profession of a sculptor cannot withstand such stress. I burned business cards. Stopped communicating. Socially it put me at the bottom."
But Neizvestny ensured that the celebrities with whom Rostropovich introduced him began to come to his studio as a sculptor.
It takes two to three hours to get to Neizvestny's house from Manhattan. First across Long Island, and then take the ferry. After ten minutes of sailing, the shore of a clean, well-groomed Shelter Island appears, inhabited by retired millionaires, important young people with expensive manners - and a famous Russian sculptor. The artist owns a plot of one hectare and half a lake. The house was built according to the design of Neizvestny himself and corresponds to his spirit. Attached to it is a studio, a high cylindrical hall with a gallery.
When the master left Russia, his wife Dina Mukhina and daughter Olga were not allowed to go with him. In October 1995, Neizvestny married again. Anya is Russian, she emigrated a long time ago. By profession she is a Spanish scholar.
Neizvestny himself taught in Hamburg, Harvard, Columbia University and New York University - art, anatomy, philosophy, synthesis of arts. I could have become a permanent professor, but I didn’t want to. He really enjoyed teaching, but the routine paperwork got in the way. And also reports, meetings... All this took up too much precious time.
As always, the sculptor works very hard in the studio. Although in recent years he has undergone two heart surgeries. Once he even experienced clinical death. He was saved again by a Russian doctor - Sasha Shakhnovich.
“...I spend a lot,” says Unknown, “material, casting, assistants - huge amounts of money are being wasted. Several million dollars have been invested in my park - if you count one casting. And when I don’t work, rich people don’t spend money, but give dividends.
According to the rules, 12 copies of the sculpture have the status of an original. I used to cast 12 each. But now I try to give minimum editions - maybe two, maybe three copies. This will not increase the cost, no, but the value of the work. And this gives me a perspective in life, something to live for - work. And if there is overstocking, it is psychologically very difficult to work.
In the West, I realized that freedom of creativity is given by money, this is the blood of creativity; you need to invest a lot of money to create sculptures.”
Along with large-scale works, Neizvestny creates works related to small plastic arts, as well as numerous graphic cycles. Book graphics have always been an important component of the artist’s creativity. Back in the late sixties, he created a series of illustrations for the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". They were published in the “Literary Monuments” series.
For the last decade, Neizvestny has been designing the most popular work in the world - the Bible. His illustrations for Ecclesiastes express the complex and contradictory world of modern man. The traditions of Bosch and Goya, who saw the surrounding reality grotesquely and did not find bright principles in it, were reflected here.
Small plastic art involuntarily led Neizvestny to a completely new direction in his work; he began to create jewelry. The special refinement of movements developed in small plastics helped the sculptor create unusually elegant works, and he gravitates not towards decorations, but towards interior items. Thus, he seems to continue the main line of creativity aimed at understanding man and himself.
In 1995, Neizvestny became a laureate of the State Prize of Russia, was reinstated in the Union of Artists, and received Russian citizenship. In the nineties, the sculptor came to his historical homeland more than once on business. In 1995, he opened a monument to the victims of Stalin’s repressions in Magadan - a seventeen-meter reinforced concrete “Mask of Sorrow.” Neizvestny took on most of the expenses, donating 800 thousand dollars from his fees for the construction of the monument.
The art gallery "Nashchokin's House" hosted the first personal exhibition of sculpture, painting and drawing by the Unknown, held in Russia after his emigration. It reflected the main stages of the artist’s creative path from 1966 to 1993.
However, the master cannot return to Russia forever. His creativity is connected with a huge material base. These are machines, casting, studio, factories. Starting over again after seventy is impossible even for him, who has some secret of creative longevity.
And yet, what caused such an insatiable thirst for creativity at such a respectable age: “Absolute madness and efficiency,” answers the maestro.
And one more thing….. “There were no great atheist artists. The point is that you need to have some modesty. You don’t need to consider yourself exceptional, disconnected from the flight of ducks, from the changing stars, from the ebb and flow of the tides.
The only creature that suddenly has an idea is man. This does not mean that you are appointed by God! This is nonsense, God does not appoint anyone. He accepts."
Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestny is called the greatest sculptor of our time. The son of “disenfranchised” parents, he went through earlier recognition of his talent, the Second World War, imaginary death, persecution and recognition. Sculptures by Ernst Neizvestny are installed in Artek and the Vatican, on the Aswan Dam, in Magadan, New York and other cities of the world. At 90 years old, confined to a wheelchair, the great sculptor and philosopher continues to create.
Ernst Neizvestny was born on April 9, 1925 in Yekaterinburg. His parents were children's doctor Joseph Moiseevich Neizvestny and the author of popular children's books (as well as a theosophist and poet by vocation) Bella Abramovna Dizhur. Ernst showed his ability to draw and sculpt very early. Since 1939, he began to participate in All-Union competitions for children's creativity, and repeatedly became a winner, which allowed him to enter the secondary art school of Leningrad (now the State Academic Art Lyceum named after Ioganson). In March 1942, the art school was evacuated to Samarkand, and a few months later, having increased his age, Ernst Neizvestny voluntarily went to the military registration and enlistment office. He graduated from the Air Force School, but did not make it to the front - he shot an officer who raped a girl. The tribunal sent Neizvestny to a penal battalion on the Second Ukrainian Front, where he took part in many battles and was awarded the medal "For Courage". In April 1945, on Austrian territory, Ernst was seriously wounded. The doctor at the hospital drew up documents about his death, a funeral was sent to his parents, and Neizvestny himself was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star. However, when the orderlies carelessly unloaded the “dead body” into the basement, a groan was heard. The doctors left Neizvestny, although for a long time he could not do without crutches and morphine (on the advice of his father, Ernst managed to replace
drug with vodka), and subsequently was embarrassed by the scars that disfigured his body. After demobilization, Ernst Neizvestny worked as a drawing teacher, then was sent to study at the Riga Academy of Arts. However, the medal-bearing warrior could not count on the friendly attitude of the Latvians. In 1947, he moved to Moscow and became a student at two prestigious academic institutions at once - the Surikov Institute and Moscow State University (Faculty of Philosophy). Among Neizvestny's teachers were such famous sculptors as Vuchetich, Tomsky, Manizer, and Ernst's student works were acquired by the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. However, the future great sculptor, like many front-line students, had his own vision of life and creativity, and already at that time many of his works did not agree with the dominant concept of socialist realism. In addition, he lived from hand to mouth and had no housing. While doing odd jobs, Ernst once even attempted suicide.
In 1955, Neizvestny became a member of the Moscow branch of the Union of Artists (sculpture section), participated in exhibitions in the capital, but his works were not in demand. The combination of realism and abstraction, expressive plasticity and his own vision of the world attract the attention of experts, but do not meet with approval from critics and officials. In 1956, Neizvestny began work on the sculptural composition "Tree of Life" - but he could not complete it
he succeeded only two decades later. True, the Festival of Youth and Students in 1957 brought Ernst two medals, and in 1959, it seemed that luck finally smiled on the sculptor - his project for the Victory Monument won the All-Union competition. However, offended eminent colleagues accused Neizvestny of plagiarism, and as a result, the monument was erected according to Vuchetich’s design. At the same time, the works of the young talented sculptor enjoyed enormous success at metropolitan and foreign exhibitions, and his workshop became a real center of dissidents of the sixties of that time. Among the regular visitors was schoolgirl Dina Mukhina, who later became a famous ceramic artist, Ernst’s wife and mother of his daughter Olga, also a future artist.
One of the most high-profile events of the sixties was the scandal with the exhibition for the 30th anniversary of the Moscow Union of Artists (1962). All the epithets expressed by Khrushchev on this matter are described in sufficient detail. Formally, Neizvestny was not harmed - he was invited to participate in Soviet and foreign exhibitions. However, the sculptor could not purchase materials for creativity, he was severely beaten several times, including at the police station, unknown persons destroyed his workshop and the works in it. At the same time, Ernst worked, no matter what. In 1968 he created a monumental relief in Artek, in 1968 he won an international competition to erect a monument on Azua
dam, worked a lot on book illustrations. In 1974, after the death of N. Khrushchev, at the request of his son, Neizvestny created a tombstone on the grave of his former persecutor.
In 1976, after several refusals to travel abroad, the famous sculptor decided to emigrate. His parents supported him, but his wife and daughter categorically refused to travel abroad. Neizvestny first settled in Zurich, and a year later he moved to New York, where he currently lives. He began giving lectures at universities, completed the composition “The Tree of Life”, and created several sculptures for the Vatican, including the “Great Crucifix”. In 1982, Neizvestny published the book “On Synthesis in Art.” Neizvestny resumed cooperation with Russia starting in the 90s. He created a monument to the victims of the Gulag "Mask of Sorrow" (Magadan), a copy of the "Tree of Life" for installation in Moscow, "The Golden Child" (Odessa), a monument to miners (Kemerovo). In 1995, Ernst Neizvestny married ethnic Russian Anna Graham, a specialist in linguistics and art history. Three years ago, the sculptor underwent a very difficult operation and now sees with only one eye. He moves in a wheelchair and can no longer sculpt, but he creates drawings that his assistants translate into three-dimensional models. The Ernst Neizvestny Museum has been opened in Yekaterinburg, and the sculptor’s immediate plans include creating a memorial to the repressed in the vicinity of the city.
Ernst Neizvestny is one of the outstanding sculptors of our time, who managed to serve many great powers: the USSR, Russia and the USA.
Over his long life, Neizvestny created many sculptures of various themes, and even now he continues his work.
Ernst Neizvestny was born on April 9, 1925 into a family of intellectuals. His mother was a writer and his father a doctor. From an early age he became involved in art, and in 1942 he studied at the Leningrad Secondary Art School, which was evacuated at that time.
In 1943, he received a summons and went to the front. He fights until April 1945, when he is seriously wounded in battles in Austria. He is considered dead and receives the Order of the Red Star, posthumously.
Having recovered from his wound, he entered the Riga Academy of Arts, and later transferred to the Moscow Art Institute. Then he receives a diploma in philosophy from Moscow State University. In 1955 he became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR and began active creative work. However, his sculptures are met with harsh criticism from General Secretary Khrushchev, who assesses Neizvestny's work as degenerate art.
Fortunately, this does not greatly prevent him from continuing his work. For some time he has been in disgrace; his paintings are not exhibited. A few years later, the disgrace was lifted, and Neizvestny exhibited abroad, where he gained considerable popularity. In 1976, he left the USSR and lived in Switzerland for a year, later migrating to the United States.
In America, stunning success awaits him. His works appear in the prestigious Magna Gallery. In 1989, a biographical film about the Unknown was shot. Ernst Neizvestny died on August 9, 2016.
Ernst Unknown artist of the late period of the USSR. At the beginning of his creative career, censorship was no longer comprehensive, so he allowed himself more freedom than his predecessors. At the same time, his works are very successful. His works “No to Nuclear War” and “Dead Soldier” appear. Neizvestny's works during this period are distinguished by their special pathos and symbolism.
The sculptor had great courage, so he often experiments with forms. The materials are mostly the same. For reliefs he usually used bronze, and for monuments he used concrete. You can also emphasize the increased deformation of the figures, their exaggeration. At the same time, the themes are often tragic and sorrowful. This is how “Orpheus” was born, where the theme of hopelessness and desperation was brilliantly played out by him.
Ernst Neizvestny. sculpture Mask of Sorrow photo
After migration, the topic changes. Unknown is increasingly creating anti-communist works. For example, his “Man through the wall” is dedicated to the fall of the communist regime. And in 1996, the “Mask of Sorrow” appeared in Magadan - a reminder of the numerous victims of communist power.
Reliefs:
Sculptures:
The unknown person survived fire, water, and copper pipes. During the war, he was wounded, became disabled, was expelled from the USSR, but forever remained a patriot of his country. "AiF" decided to remind readers of the most significant works Ernst Neizvestny.
Many people think that the sculptor created this small figurine specifically for the TEFI TV award. This is wrong. In 1962, the exhibition “30 years of Moscow Union of Artists” was held in the Moscow Manege; Khrushchev mercilessly criticized Neizvestny’s work. It was then that Unknown came up with his “Orpheus” with a torn chest. The original "Orpheus" is 2 meters tall!
Bronze figurine “Orpheus” - prize of the Academy of Russian Television TEFI. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Polyakov
Installed at the Novodevichy cemetery in 1975. Khrushchev once called the works of the Unknown “degenerate art.” After which Neizvestny was unable to sell a single work for several years and worked part-time as a loader. However, at the request of Khrushchev’s relatives, the sculptor, forgetting the grievances, created this monument.
Tombstone monument to N. Khrushchev. Ernst Neizvestny Photo: AiF/ Valery Khristoforov
Monument in the Magadan region. at the foot of the Krutaya hill. An unknown person created it for almost 10 years in memory of the victims of the Stalinist regime. Inside is a replica of a prison cell. Initially, Neizvestny proposed creating a triptych “Triangle of Suffering” - sculptures in Magadan, Vorkuta and Yekaterinburg.
Mask of Sorrow. Ernst Neizvestny Photo: www.russianlook.com
Tour sculpture created by Ernst Neizvestny in 1968-1971. in honor of the friendship of peoples. The monument was installed on the Aswan Dam in Egypt (the sculptor then received congratulations directly from Brezhnev’s office) and until recent years was considered the most massive in the world. The height of the “flower” is 75 meters!
"Lotus Flower" Ernst Neizvestny Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Przemyslaw
Neizvestny conceived this sculpture in 1956, but was able to complete it only half a century later. On the “branches” of the tree, which appeared year after year, there are Yuri Gagarin, Buddha, and a crucifix. In 2004, having “grown” the tree to a significant size, Neizvestny planted the sculpture inside the capital’s Bagration Bridge.
"Tree of Life". Ernst Neizvestny Photo: AiF/ Eduard Kudryavitsky
Ernst Neizvestny in New York.
