Anatoly Zverev is a Russian avant-garde artist. The best Russian draftsman he called Pablo Picasso. The artist's works are in the best collections of modern art.
In the late sixties in the capital there were legends about a strange man. He came to the diners and painted with a cigarette butt, dipping it in ketchup, portraits on napkins. Then he sold his work for nothing. In a whisper, they added that in the West, drawings of brilliant half-educated were recognized as brilliant. They believed it with difficulty. It was about Anatoly Timofeevich Zverev.
Creative choice
His biography began in 1931. The future painter was born in Moscow on November 3. The family of the child was far from art, but the boy himself early showed creativity. The first award for creativity by the boy was received at the age of four. The painting was called "Street Movement." The drawing was taught by the famous graphic artist Nikolai Sinitsyn.
Education Zverev received at the art and craft school. Having become a high-class painter on artistic decoration, Zverev worked in the house of pioneers, Sokolniki Park. For the first time they learned about Zverev thanks to the choreographer, dancer and actor Alexander Rumnev.
The paintings he saw at the end of the forties struck him. The acquaintance happened when a young painter painted a fence in Sokolniki Park with fantastic birds using cinnabar, white paint and a homemade brush. In 1954, Zverev became a student in the capital's art school in memory of 1905. He soon left training.
In personal life, changes occurred in 1957. Anatoly Timofeevich and Lyudmila Nazarova became husband and wife. Two children appeared in the family, son Misha and daughter Vera. The marriage broke up. Zverev built a new relationship with Ksenia Sinyakova.
The artist from 1959 to 1962 took part in apartment exhibitions. A personal debut exhibition of the artist abroad took place in 1965 at the Paris Motte Gallery in Geneva. In 1957, an art studio was set up in Gorky Park. Foreign abstract artists leniently instructed the capital's painters, talking about pure art. They were struck by a Russian artist who, with the help of a mop, almost instantly created an exquisite female portrait from paint stains.
Abroad and at home
Engravings by Anatoly Timofeevich were shown at the capital's Youth Exhibition held for the VI International Festival of Youth and Students. Since 1959, the Life magazine was published on its pages of reproductions of the artist’s works. Three watercolors painted by Zverev in 1961 were acquired by the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Exhibitions of the master are held in the capitals of many European countries. In 1984, the only personal exhibition of the painter in his homeland took place. His career has become a self-rejection of the treasury, general norms and ideas about art.
The impact of his innovation in creativity is palpable to this day. The culmination of the fifties and sixties. Zverev turned into the embodiment of the spirit of freedom in modern art and one of the leaders of non-conformism. Finding any historical roots in a creative manner is extremely difficult. The master called the great Leonardo da Vinci a teacher. The master could only identify any picture in the Tretyakov Gallery by small fragments.
After the sixties, Anatoly Timofeevich did not paint. However, even for the amusement of others, he managed to create stunning works. His drawings are distinguished by expressiveness of strokes, accuracy, ease, characteristic of the master’s graphics. Written by him in the fifties, "Sitting Nude" is recognized as a world-class masterpiece.
Features of creativity
The illustrations for Apuleius, Gogol, Cervantes are amazing. However, any "doctrine" was not for him. Anatoly Timofeevich did not recognize group engagement, although he remained uncharacteristic and his choice of the path of an underground single painter. He did not fit into the existing community.
The master’s paintings are often faked. He has no definite direction. All canvases are united by style unity, but it is impossible to attribute it to any generally accepted trend. Zvereva was called a Russian expressionist. The artist listened to teachings on the need to accurately convey life experiences, where passion was called one of the ways to convey them to the audience.
An equally finished picture was fascinated by its creation. The painter preferred to improvise, entertaining others. He worked with improvised materials: pieces of beets, kitchen knives, razor shaving brushes, fingers. Zverev poured paint on the canvases, smearing it with shoes or rags. In order not to stain others, the place of work had to be fenced.
