Pavel Leonov
| This
Russian artist, who is entirely self-taught, is considered to be one
of the great 20th-Century masters of Naive Art. His paintings are
characteristically composed of a complex of discreet spatial elements
across which, nevertheless, figures and animals appear to interact.
Leonov refers to these individual sections as 'television sets' or
'rooms'. It is, perhaps, a sign of the Russian context that he refers
to his works as 'constructions', as opposed to the 'naturalism' he
defines as being synonymous with an art school education. Yet this
is clearly not the Constructivism of early Soviet art, as exemplified
in the likes of Popova or Rodchenko, but a kind of magic realism that
is much more in keeping with folk traditions and the popular imagery
of Russian lubki, Leonov's uncompromising attachment to the hermetic
'other' reality manifest in his paintings, together with an intransigent
nature have led to him spending several years of his life in Soviet
prison camps, including an extended period after his war service in
Hungary. In spite of being socially ostracised Leonov's images dwell
not on hardship or any harboured bitterness, but reveal in tangible
form the ideal reality of his dreams.
The artist is
represented in many museums worldwide, including The Charlotte Zander
Museum, Germany, and The Russian National House of Folk Art, Moscow. |
For further information and a list of works currently available |
