Portrait of Shostakovich
(Портрет Шостаковича)
In the portraits of musicians the artist constructs visual characterization
of his sitters through analogy with music. He perceives the sitter’s music
as a drama of extreme emotional tensions.
Dr. Alexander Borovsky, Chief Curator of Contemporary Art, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Publications:
Across All Barriers, Dr. Alexander Borovsky, Pushkin Group, Ltd. 2005, Page 59, Plate 41
Boris Chetkov - Portraitist, Dr. Alexander Borovsky, Pushkin Group, Ltd. 2008, Page 37, Plate 14
Boris Chetkov (1926-2010)
During the postwar period, at a time when the Russian avant-garde was demonized in the Soviet Union as formalist and bourgeois, Chetkov resurrected many of their techniques. His works share the deliberate ‘unsophistication’ of Primitivist or folk art, the abstraction and spirituality of Kandinsky and the romantic whimsical view of peasant life as pioneered by Chagall.
Across All Barriers
Fortunately, Boris Chetkov did not suffer the almost total oblivion that was the lot of his predecessors, as he has become broadly regarded as one of the most important and distinctly unique innovators of Post War Russian art.
Reimagining Russia
Theodora Clarke discusses the artist's life and work and places Chetkov in the context of Modernism and Russian art in the Post War Era.
The Collected Works of Boris Chetkov
Dedicated to the extraordinary life of Boris Chetkov, illuminating his works in high-definition detail with videos, galleries, essays and more.
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