The Tretyakov and Russian Ministry of Culture have announced they have received a precious gift of 32 paintings and two graphic works by Geli Korzhev from the collector and businessman, Vladimir Nekrasov.

Vladimir Nekrasov, second from right, feeling the pain of losing his Korzhev’s. Zelfira Tregulova, on the right, director of the Tretakov Gallery, Vladimir Medinsky on the left, Russian Minister of Culture and Yevgeny Gerasimov of the Duma (third from the left) receiving the Korzhevs at the Tretyakov as part of the annual Art Night Festival.

Geli Mikhailovic Korzhev (July 7^th 1925 – August 27^th 2012) was one of the most prominent of the Russian post-war artists and a founder of the Severe Style movement of the 1960’s along with Nikolai Andronov, Tahir Salahov, Victor Popkov, Pavel Nikonov, Pyotr Ossovski and Victor Ivanov. This style is the leading post-war art movement in Russia and, although long recognized as such in Russian museum circles, is only just starting to be studied in the West. Korzhev died in 2012 and the Tretyakov held a retrospective of his work in 2016. Korzhev, for reasons unknown, had always refused a retrospective during his lifetime. Although Korzhev was good company in later life, although opinionated, he suffered from a lack of self-confidence earlier in his career and during the 1970’s gave up painting almost completely in order to teach. Natalya Alexandrovna, the Tretyakov curator who knew him as well as anyone, believes it was this lack of self -confidence that kept him from allowing the retrospective.

Geli Korzhev in the 1970’s

Born in 1925 in Moscow, Korzhev’s philosophy and art was influenced by the social context and standards that defined life in the Soviet Union. Evacuated as a teenager from Moscow during the Second World War, when he spent time with Vladimir Stozharov and the Tkachev brothers in Samarkand.

Korzhev self portrait

Korzhev graduated from the prestigious Surikov Institute in 1950. In interviews he always said how grateful he was for his Surikov education and how it seemed a miracle to be able to study art after the deprivations of the war. He kept some of the plaster busts he had been made to copy whilst at the Institute and continued to make studies of them all his life.

Korzhev’s ‘Miner Girl.’

Korzhev was a teacher at the Stroganov Institute of Art in Moscow and a member of the Union of Soviet Artists. In 1968, he became the chairman of the Moscow branch of that organization. His paintings are housed in many major Russian collections and have been displayed in North America at the Smithsonian Institution, the Guggenheim Museum, and other institutions.

The author with Korzhev circa 2010 in the artist’s studio which was always meticulously tidy and well-organized.

Korzhev’s contribution to the Severe Style was a reaction against the smiling faces and happy workers of the Socialist Realism school which he felt was inappropriate in austere post-war Moscow.  His work incorporates: – nudes, portraits, landscapes, fantasies with strange creatures and social documentaries.  Religious works in the Christian tradition dominated his later work when his mortality and legacy began to dominate his thinking.

Korzhev’s ‘On the Cross.’

Korzhev, who professed to be a communist until the end, liked to talk about subjects ranging from Rembrandt to his own entrenched views on art.  He was a dedicated artist who liked to paint every day even up until the end.  Sometimes his lack of drawing lets down his perspective but his compositions are well-balanced and he is famous for his ability to covey different textures. He preferred talking to selling his paintings and many a collector came away disappointed and empty-handed from the artist’s studio having spent a few hours listening to the artist holding court. The Tretyakov had similar difficulties obtaining the artist’s work and this substantial group of his works, built up by Nekrasov over many years, will partly satisfy this gap in their collection.

Korzhev ‘Still life with Jugs.’ Korzhev has said that in time he believes his still lives will be considered among his most famous works. Paintings such as this look simple but the artist took care to arrange harmonious compositions and re-used favorite objects all through his career.

Nerkrasov has had difficulties with the Russian authorities since his arrest in 2008 over alleged tax fraud. With his partner at the time, Semion Mogilevich, Nekrasov owned Arbat Prestige, the largest chain of cosmetic stores in Russia and the CIS. Mogilevich, who was arrested at the same time, was described by the FBI as the “boss of bosses” of the Russian Mafia and the, “most dangerous mobster in the world.” The FBI alleges Mogilevich’s involvement in, “weapons trafficking, contact murders, extortion, drug trafficking and prostitution on an international scale.”

In 2008 Nekrasov and Mogilevech spent 6 months in prison before being released on July 24^th, 2009. On Mogilevech’s release the Russian interior Ministry stated that he was released because the charges against him, “are not of a particularly grave nature.”

Valdimir Nekrasov photographed in the Courtroom during his 2008 trial.

Nekrasov kept his extensive art collection in a large house in Moscow where he liked to show paintings and entertain. Although he and Mogilevich were living openly in Moscow it appears his troubles had recently begun to intensify and he has been trying to sell his collection en bloc. It is believed that this gift to the nation is part of a deal to clear up some of these outstanding tax issues. Whatever, the reason, Korzhev’s accomplished work is very powerful and much admired in Russia and increasingly elsewhere also as it becomes better known. It is welcome that this important group of works will now be publicly displayed in the Tretyakov.