Mikhail Kazansky (1932-2003) Russian, "Red Wine" Oil on Canvas. Depicts a glum figure at a table contemplating a bottle and glass of red wine. Signed and titled in Cyrillic on back, along with date: 1997. 

Overall Size: 23 1/4 x 27 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 19 1/4 x 23 1/4 in. 

#4454 

Mikhail Sergeevich Kazansky was born in Moscow, Russia in 1932. After graduating from the Surikov Art Institute in 1953 he entered the I. Repin St. Petersburg State Academy Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, in 1955. Kazansky found a mentor in B. V. Ioganson, the President of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, who personally asked to enlist Kazansky as one of his students. Kazansky made close friends with two other artists during his studies, the Armenian artist Minas Avetisyan and the nonconformist Oleg Tselkov. Kazansky graduated from the Institute in 1960 and wound up becoming a mentor to several young artists himself over the next decade. He joined the Union of Soviet Artists in 1964, but politics prevented him from receiving his first solo exhibition until 1988 in Leningrad, even though he had been exhibiting with others (particularly Avetisyan and Tselkov) since at least 1957. Although he incorporated realistic imagery into his works, he often sought to infuse them with symbolism and hidden meaning, and expressed appreciation for Russian folk art and traditions, especially icon painting. In 1991 he and a small group of Russian artists were invited to Luxembourg by the Centre of Robert Schuman, and wound up staying there to paint for several years as the Soviet Union dissolved. He participated in an exhibition in Switzerland in 1993, which led to his works being included in a Christie’s auction that same year. He returned to Russia in 1994, and spent the remainder of his life working in Krasnogorsk, teaching less and less frequently as his eyesight began to fail. He died in 2003, just as his work was beginning to grow in appreciation outside Eastern Europe, and his paintings are now on permanent display in the Tretyakov Gallery, as well as in private collections in Russia, Western Europe, and America.