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 Boris Alexandrovich Chetkov (1926-2010)
Few can be indifferent to the work of Boris Chetkov, a powerful artist whose life has been far from ordinary. The Pushkin Group’s monograph on his life and art continues their exciting project to acquaint the non-Russian world with Russian artists whose work has been unjustly undervalued and left out of the limelight of the international art scene.
Sadly, there are many such artists, individuals whose fate was twisted and distorted by the age of totalitarian culture, yet Chetkov stands apart in this long list. He felt the pressure of the regime from his earliest childhood: born into a peasant family at a time when Stalinist collectivization was utterly destroying the peasant way of life. He passed through the Gulag and then the war, overcoming adversity and terrible illness to gain his artistic education despite opposition from the system. Then he went on to spend many frustrated years stuck, tucked away in the provinces, working at a small glass factory. Yet even there his talents would not be contained. He created amazing works in the world of glass and received the recognition of his peers. But applied art was only the visible part of his professional life.
Chetkov was born to paint. Deep within him churned a passion and an unbending desire to paint - to show his art to the world. He understood his calling not just with his mind, but with his heart and soul, and he followed it. He became not only a painter and draughtsman but emerged at the forefront of contemporary art, totally independently. He belonged to no group, had no support of like-minded fellows or of friends and artists who proclaimed similar principles. Often he worked totally cut off from any idea of what was happening in the mainstream.
Chetkov works in a multitude of styles, equally at home within very different stylistic worlds: Post-Impressionism, Neo-Expressionism, Surrealism, the Vienna School of Fantastical Realism. Such freedom of navigation through the ocean of painted culture in the 20th century has been achieved largely through his powerful, organic understanding of color. This gut-level almost tactile embrace of color allowed the artist to realize his full potential ‘across all barriers’ (to use the expression of great Russian poet Boris Pasternak). Barriers erected by schools, trends and rules. The art critic Alexander Borovsky has justly described Chetkov as an Ageless Modernist. I can only agree with him, for this is an artist, a man with the powerful urge to create, who truly does not age, who does not tire, and most importantly, who never gives in.
Dr Albert Kostenevich, Keeper of Impressionist Paintings State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
Bibliography:
Chetkov B. “Reminiscences”. Manuscript. Archives of Kennet Pushkin, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Irina Michailova. Filosofski-metodologichesky analiz iskusstva fantasticheskogo realizma (na primere tvorchestva Borisa Chetkova). SPb, 2005.
E. Rachuk. Sovietskoye tsvetnoe steklo. Moscow, 1982.
Novij hudojestvennij Peterburg. Reference-analytical magazine. Edited by Leikind O., Severuhin D. SPb, 2004.
“Drugoye iskusstvo”. Moskva 1956-1972. K khronike hudozhestvennoj zhizni. Moscow, 1991.
L’ Arte Vietata in U.R.S.S. 1955 –1988. Electa, Milano. 2000.
Borovsky Alexander . Silent Screams from the Russian Underground. N-Y,Council for ?reative Projects ,1995.
Forbiden Art. The Postwar Russian Avantgard ( Texts by John E.Bolt, Alla Rosenfeld, Alexander Borovsky and others). ?uratorial Assistance, Inc., Los Angeles, California in association with Distibuted Art Publishers, N-Y, 1998
A.Rosenfeld, Norton D.Dodge, eds., From Gulag to Glasnost: Noncomformist Art from the Soviet Unoion, Thames and Hudson, New York, 1955 ( texts by D.Cate, A.Rosenfeld, N.T.Dodge, V.Tupitsyn and others).
E.Degot, Russkoe iskusstvo ?? veka, Trilistnik, Moscow, 2000.
Russian Impressionism. Editor-in-chief: Yevgenia Petrova; authors of articles: Vladimir Kruglov, Vladimir Leniashin. Palace Editions, Saint-Petersburg, 2000.
Abstraction in Russia: XX Century. In two volumes. Editor-in-chief: Yevgenia Petrova; authors of articles: Alexander Borovsky, Elena Ivanova, Olga Shikhereva, Jean-Claud Markade, and others. Palace editions, Saint-Petersburg, 2001.
Vern Gosvenor Swanson. Soviet Impressionism. Antique Collector’s Club, 2001.
A. Borovsky.The Academic Dacha Through The Eyes of Nikolai Timkov. The Pushkin Group, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1999.
A.Borovsky. Vasily Golubev. Master Russian expressionist. The Pushkin Group, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2005, p.9.
Ilya Kabakov. 60-e – 70-e. Zapiski o neoficialnoj zhizni v Moskve. Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Sonderband47.Wien, 1999
A. Borovsky. “Zamri, usni, voskresni”. Abstraktnoe iskusstvo v Rossii. V kn.: Abstrakcia v Rossii. Palace Editions. Vol. 2. 2001.
Prostranstvo Sterligova. Edition Khudozhestvennij proekt “Avangard na Neve”. SPb, 2001.
Groys, Boris. The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond. Trans. Charles Rougle. Princeton,NJ: Princeton university press, 1992.
Arefjevsky krug. Edition Khudozhestvennij proekt “Avangard na Neve”. SPb, 2002.
A.Rosenfeld, Norton D.Dodge, eds., From Gulag to Glasnost: Noncomformist Art from the Soviet Unoion, Thames and Hudson, New York, 1995 ( texts by D.Cate, A.Rosenfeld, N.T.Dodge, V.Tupitsyn and others).
A. Borovsky. Silueti sovremennih khudozhnikov. Edition Ivana Limbacha. SPb, 2003.
E. Kovtun. Puti russkogo avangarda. V kn.: Sovietskoye iskusstvo 20-30-h godov. Gos. Russkiy muzej. Leningrad, 1988.
Igor Stravinsky. Khronika moej zhizni. Leningrad, 1963, p. 99 – 100.
Tatiana Cherednichenko. Muzikalnij zapas. 70-e. Problemi. Portreti. Sluchai. Moscow, 2002, p. 269.
Williams R.S. Artists in Revolution. Indiana University Press. 1977.
Matthew Cullerne Brown, Brandon Taylor, ed. Art of the Soviets. Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in One-Party State. 1917-1992. Manchester University Press, 1993.
Tupitsyn M. Margins of Soviet Art. Socialist Realism to the Present. Giancarlo Politi Editore, 1989.
Art in the UdSSR and beyond, Ausst.-kat. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1990.
Utopia Spirit. Russian Impressionism. 1930-1980s (text M.Onheiber). Fleischer Museum.1998.
Romantizm. Socrealizm. Oborotnaya storona medali. Zhgivopis, grafika 1930-1950-h godov iz kollekcii Khudozhestvennogo fonda “Novaya galerea”. Moscow, 1995.
Puteshestvie v Srednuu Asiu. Zhivopis I grafika sovietskih khudozhnikov. Galerea Leonida Shishkina. Moscow, 2005.
Positionen. St. Petersburger Kunst von 1970 bis heute. Herausgeber K . ?ecker, B. Straka. Kiel, 1995.
Russia! Nine Hundred years of Masterpieces and Master Collections (texts by J. Billington, D.Sarabianov,E.Degot, V.Hillings, A.Borovsky and others Guggenheimmuseum. N-Y., 2005
Information provided by Kenneth Pushkin |
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