Alexander Dmitrievich AREFIEV 1931 — 1978Олександр АРЄФ`ЄВ • Александр Дмитриевич АРЕФЬЕВAlexander Dmitrievich Arefiev was born in 1931. Studied at Leningrad Intermediate Art School in 1946-1949 and was expelled for “formalism”. Nonoconformist artist. Active in Moscow until 1977 ( excluding two spells in prison camp). Member of Association of Impoverished Artists. He experimented with various techniques, and his works are full of contrasts. The gentle graphics of his Bath series and early landscapes of the 40s give way to pungent expressive scenes from everyday life frequently involving rows and violence. The series devoted to Ancient Greece does not divert him too far from the realities - the canvasses are very true to life and devoid of the cold archaism. The fantastic grotesque of the late period was largely taken for decline while young artists and some art critics advanced an opinion that his canvasses, though devoid of former qualities, acquire the garish toughness that became sound in the new art some years later. Forced to emigrate after his imprisonment, the artist, unable to adjust to the Western way, died in Paris in1978. |
