Oscar Rabin (russian: Оскар Яковлевич Рабин;

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, 2 January 1928 –

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, 7 November 2018) was a major Russian painter and activist who defined the core of the Soviet Nonconformist Art movement, affecting the careers of countless painters and sculptors of that era and its aftermath.

Biography

Born in Moscow on January 2, 1928 in the family of doctors Yakov Rakhmilovich Rabin (originally from

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) and Veronika Martynovna Anderman (from

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

). In 1946-1948 he studied at the

Art Academy of Latvia The Art Academy of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Mākslas akadēmija) is an institution of higher education and scientific research in art, located in Riga, Latvia. The neo-Gothic brick building is located on Krišjānis Valdemārs Street, next to t ...

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. In 1948-1949 he studied at the Surikov Art Institute in

. Oscar Rabin was one of the originators of the nonconformism era and a key organizer of what is now referred to as the 'Lianozovo Group', a collective which grew around (1893-1979). Over a period of seven years (1958-1965), the former camp barracks in Lianozovo, where Oskar Rabin lived with his wife, Valentina Kropivnitskaya, acted as the center of the progressive

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...

. Soviet material life and its dramatic absurdity was for many years the central theme of Rabin’s creativity. The artist’s favorite genres included landscape, still life and interiors, continuing in the tradition of 1920s European expressionism. Rabin uses a distortion of perspective, the principles of deformation and the destruction of large-scale relationships. Along with the writer and collector Alexander Glezer, Oscar Rabin was instrumental in the organization of what is known as the dissident

Bulldozer Exhibition The Bulldozer Exhibition (russian: link=no, Бульдозерная выставка) was an unofficial art exhibition on a vacant lot in the Belyayevo urban forest ( Bitsa Park) by Moscow and Leningrad avant-garde artists on 15 September 1974 ...

, an unofficial art exhibition on a vacant lot in the Belyayevo ( ru)

urban forest An urban forest is a forest, or a collection of trees, that grow within a city, town or a suburb. In a wider sense, it may include any kind of woody plant vegetation growing in and around human settlements. As opposed to a forest park, whose eco ...

by Moscow avant-garde artists on 15 September 1974. The exhibition was forcefully broken up by a large police force that included bulldozers and water cannons. These events and Rabin's biography have been documented in the two-part documentar
Oscar
(2018) and

In Search of a Lost Paradise ''In Search of a Lost Paradise'' is a 2015 German-Russian documentary by Evgeniy Tsymbal and Alexander Smoljanski which tells the story of Russian artist Valentina Kropivnitskaya and her husband, the artist Oscar Rabin. Aside from the biography ...

(2015). Subsequently, he participated in the jubilee exhibition on Gogol Boulevard in 1995, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the exhibition of painting in the pavilion "beekeeping" at VDNH with Eduard Drobitsky, Julia Dolgorukova and other nonconformist artists. In 1978, Rabin and his family were reportedly stripped of their Soviet passports and citizenship; that year, Rabin emigrated to

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where he lived until his death at the age of 90 on 7 November 2018. In November 2016, via a signed Order of the President of the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, Oscar Rabin - now long a citizen of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

- was granted dual Russian citizenship. The artist had been predeceased by his wife - Valentina Kropivnitskaya (1924-2008) and their son, Alexandre Rabine (1952-1994), both noted artists as well. The Catalogue Raisonne of all oil paintings produced by Rabine during his lifetime is being prepared by the London based academic Dr Robert Rabilizirov, who has been working on this project for over 20 years.

External links

Trailer ''"Oscar"''

Trailer ''"In Search of a Lost Paradise"''

References

Sloane Gallery of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabin, Oskar 20th-century Russian painters Russian male painters Russian Jews 21st-century Russian painters Soviet Nonconformist Art 1928 births 2018 deaths People denaturalized by the Soviet Union Soviet emigrants to France 20th-century Russian male artists 21st-century Russian male artists