Mysteries of Volovich: Show of Book and Easel Graphic Works by the Honored Artist of Russia Vitaly Volovich in the Russian Academy of Arts

The Russian Academy of Arts, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Sverdlovsk Region and the Irbit State Museum of Fine Arts present a major retrospective of works by the noted graphic artist, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts Vitaly Volovich.

 

The solo exhibition of Vitaly Volovich, b. 1928, the celebrated artist of Ekaterinburg, winner of many Russian and international competitions of book illustrations, holder of the Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts features almost 300 graphic sheets highlighting all cycles of book illustrations and easel works produced by the master for 60 years of his creative activity. Of major interest is the artist’s recent cycle of etchings entitled Grotesques.

 

Born into a writer’s family, Vitaly Volovich has taken a big interest in literature since his childhood. He started working on book illustrations soon after his graduation from the Sverdlovsk Art College. Among his first books illustrated in the 1950s were a collection of fairy-tale stories based on the Urals folklore “The Malachite Casket” by Pavel Bazhov and “The Treasure Trove of the Sun” highly appreciated by its author Mikhail Prishvin. Vitaly Volovich became famous for his illustrations to the medieval literature: The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, Tristan and Isolde legend, Icelandic sagas, etc. The artist also made brilliant illustrations to Oresteia by Aeschyles, Shakespeare’s Othello and Richard III, German classical literature of the 18-20th century.

 

In Vitaly Volovich’s easel graphic works of special interest are cycles “The Medieval Mysteries”, “Circus”, “Jerusalem”, “The Theater of Mannequins”, “Ekaterinburg”. His autobiographic series “My Studio” has been dedicated to “eternal” themes and depicts both real and unreal events in the artist’s fate. Volovich is a perfect master of all the graphic techniques. His individual manner is distinguished by expressiveness, strife for monumentality and sometimes even theatricality.

 

The first city where Vitaly Volovich exhibited his works in 1952 was Irbit (Sverdlovsk Region). Today, the Irbit Museum of Fine Arts houses a vast collection of the artist’s works. In 2008 in Ekaterinburg was unveiled a sculptural composition “Townspeople. Conversation” - a group portrait of the three celebrated artists of the Urals: Vitaly Volovich, Mikhail Brusilovsky and German Metelev.

 

Works by Vitaly Volovich are in collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, A. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the State Russian Museum, museums in Ekaterinburg, Saratov, Novosibirsk, Perm and other cities of Russia, as well as the National Gallery in Prague, Moravian Gallery in Brno, Museum of Modern Art in Cologne, Goethe Museum in Weimar.






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