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PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ROMAN TABAKMAN

RUSSIAN, B. 1928
STILL-LIFE WITH FISH AND STARKA, 1965

measurements
39 1/2 by 31 1/2 in.

alternate measurements
100.3 by 80 cm

signed in Cyrillic and dated 65 (upper right); also inscribed and dated (on the reverse)

mixed media on canvas

PROVENANCE

Alexander Gleser (acquired directly from the artist)

EXHIBITED

Paris, Galerie Jaquester, Oscar Rabine: 1966 à 1976, March 14-April 14, 1977, no. 38, illustrated (titled Nature Morte avec une assiette et une bouteille de Vodka)
Jersey City, C.A.S.E. Museum of Russian Contemporary Art in Exile, Russian Contemporary Still-Life, 1988-1989, p. 13 (titled Still-Life with Plate and "Starka")

LITERATURE

Lianozovskaia gruppa, Istoki i Sudby: sbornik materialov i katalog k vystavke v Gosudarstvennoi Tretiakovskoi galeree, 10 marta-10 aprelia 1998, Moscow, 1998, p. 195, illustrated

NOTE

Oscar Rabine was born in Moscow, in 1928. He began his studies under the painter E.L. Kropivniski and later entered the Fine Arts Academy in Riga, from 1946-48. Returning to Moscow, he entered as a student at the Surikov Art Institute, where he was eventually expelled due to his unorthodox views. During the 1950's, due to his expulsion from the academy, he was forced to earn his living as a loader for the railroads. From 1958 to 1965, he earned a reputation that attracted a group of young artists, who exhibited their works at his place, amidst discussions of the different problems relating to the world of art. These artists later became known as the Lianozovo Circle, named after a settlement just outside Moscow where he lived. In 1958 he had his first solo exhibition outside of the U.S.S.R, at London's Grosvenor Gallery. Rabine was one of the organizers of the controversial exhibition which took on September 15^th 1974, on a vacant lot in Belyaevo urban forest. This exhibition of unofficial art was broken up by the police with water canons, and even bulldozers. This event, aptly titled "the Bulldozer Exhibition," ushered in a new openness, partly fueled by the coverage by Western media, and desire by other artist groups to exhibit their 'unofficial' art.

Rabine's painting Still Life with Fish and Starka, of 1965, is a somber painting typical of his oeuvre. We note his monochromatic palette, rich in earth tones of grays and browns, with their full range of tonalities, which add both an atmospheric and melancholy quality; along with the collage influence of Cubism. His works respond to the harsh reality surrounding the slums where he worked, where he became interested in a 'unofficial' realism of Soviet life, and began to juxtapose various motifs such as official Soviet life, such as newspapers, with a more grotesque, everyday content, i.e. herring, and vodka bottles. The white porcelain plate is painted as if viewed from above, and on another plane there exists a bottle of Starka, and on yet another view of a smoky Russian city. His signature use of black, in the form of outlines, which flatten the scene, playing with its space and design, is atypical of Western modernism. The short brush work is masterful, as is the well-painted label on the bottle, which appears at once to be collaged. This work shows his mastery of surface texture, the oil mixed with sand, the built up impasto, and his wielding of the palette knife which gives the work a more tactile presence.

This work was exhibited in the exhibition "Russian Contemporary Still-Life, " at C.A.S.E. Museum of Contemporary Art in Exile, in 1988.