The Russian Academy Of Arts

The Russian Academy of Arts presents a major retrospective of over 100 works by the Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts Evgeny Vakhtangov created by the artist for more than three decades.

Evgeny Vakhtangov was born in 1942. He has been named after his famous grandfather – theater director Evgeny Vakhtangov who founded the Vakhtangov Theater in Moscow. Having finished the Moscow Secondary Art School, he entered V. Surikov Moscow Academy Art Institute where he majored in the theatrical and decorative art. Among his teachers were the leading masters of Russian art – F.F. Ryndin, D.D. Zhilinsky, M.M. Kurilko-Ryumin. Since the 1970-s Evgeny Vakhtangov has exhibited his paintings in Russia and many other countries. In 1974 he became a member of the painting section of the Moscow Union of Artists.

In the 1980-s, Evgeny Vakhtangov gradually deviated from the traditional figurative art using the experience of post-dadaism, post- and neo-primitivism, minimalism, abstract art and formal experiments of “classical” avant-garde. The art critic Nikita Makhov said about that period: “… the coloring finally loses its decorative nature … on his canvases we can sense something phantasmagoric similar to exorbitant apocalyptic abysses or complex structural conglomerations containing a hieroglyphic meaning…”.

This skillful juggling with meaningful and graphic possibilities of modern easel art has made Evgeny Vakhtangov one of the most distinguished participants in contemporary art life. In the 1990-s he became a member of Polygon art group and at the same time started teaching painting at the theater set design department of the Russian Academy of Theatrical Art. By the end of the 1990-s Vakhtangov had almost finally stepped aside from traditional principles of painting and continued his experiments in non-figurative art.

The artist’s works are in collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, Russian State Museum, Moscow Museum of Modern Art and other state and private collections in Russia and other countries.

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