Viktor Dmitrievich Pivovarov (russian: Виктор Дмитриевич Пивоваров; born 1937) is a Russian artist who lives in Prague since 1982. He represented

Soviet Nonconformist Art The term Soviet Nonconformist Art refers to Soviet art produced in the former Soviet Union from 1953 to 1986 (after the death of Joseph Stalin until the advent of Perestroika and Glasnost) outside of the rubric of Socialist Realism. Other terms u ...

and was one of the leading artists of the Moscow

Conceptualist In metaphysics, conceptualism is a theory that explains universality of particulars as conceptualized frameworks situated within the thinking mind. Intermediate between nominalism and realism, the conceptualist view approaches the metaphysical co ...

artistic movement of the 1970s, along with Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, and

Irina Nakhova Irina Isayevna Nakhova (russian: Ирина Исаевна Нахова; born 1955 in Moscow) is a Russian artist. Her father, Isai Nakhov, is a philologist. At 14 years old her mother took her to Victor Pivovarov's Atelier. Pivovarov played an ...

. His work reflected the complete ideologization of the Soviet lifestyle, often simultaneously expressing criticism and nostalgia for this lifestyle. Nakhova relates that Pivovarov was a major influence and first inspired her to paint. Pivovarov was also a prolific illustrator of children's books, with over 50 books to his credit. He moved from Moscow to Prague in 1982, and continues to live there to date.

Recent work

Lemon Eaters

A series of paintings in which the subjects are eating lemons. It has been interpreted as a variation of Vincent van Gogh's " The Potato Eaters". The Potato Eaters is van Gogh's attempt at expressing the satisfaction of enjoying the fruits of hard, honest work, while the Lemon Eaters depicts heroes with a rather more complicated relationship to consumption.

Foxes and holidays

The preamble to this album of drawings with text, is that Joseph Stalin created a region, Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Far East where thousands of Jews were sent. Some were exiled and some went willingly to create a Jewish state in the Russian Far East. After the death of Stalin, many of them left the region, and those that remained mixed with the local Russian and Chinese populations. In this way, a subculture was created which included elements of

Russian Orthodoxy Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most C ...

, Taoist- Buddhism, Judaism and

paganism Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christianity, early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions ot ...

. This subculture has cult of holy foxes. That is, for every moment of a person's life, there is a specific fox-character that helps a person contend with their life challenges. Each of these fox-characters has its own holiday.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pivovarov, Viktor 20th-century Russian painters Russian male painters 21st-century Russian painters Soviet Nonconformist Art 1937 births Living people Russian contemporary artists Russian emigrants to the Czech Republic 20th-century Russian male artists 21st-century Russian male artists