Oil on linen
17 ¼ x 20 ¾ inches
Oscar Rabin was born in Moscow in 1928. After the end of the Second World War, he studied in the Art Academy in Riga. During those years his painting technique matured, and he became interested in French and German Expressionism. He returned to Moscow and entered the Surikov Institute of Art, but was soon expelled for his «formalist» tendencies. In the late 1940s he studied under Evgenii Kropivnitsky, the founder of the Lianozovo school. He married Kropivnitsky’s daughter, Valentina Kropivnitskaia, and together they created the Lianozovo Community, which united young poets and artists who were opposed to official artistic standards.
Rabin’s art lies at the intersection of several different movements that he managed to integrate within his work without loosing his autonomous system. His work was extremely influential in the nonconformist community in Moscow. Rabin’s documentary world demonstrates the level of bureaucracy within the Soviet system through images of the official Party press and Soviet passports. Rabin explores the ability of an individual to preserve oneself, hidden behind the material life of society.
Rabin organized one of the first open protests by Moscow artists, the so-called Bulldozer Exhibition of 1974. Later he exhibited nonconformist art in apartments and eventually became the true leader of nonconformist culture. By the end of 1970s Rabin’s authority within the community became a serious political threat to the regime, and in 1978 he was forced to leave the country. Rabin and Kropivnitskaia live in Paris.