Other Civilizations: Solo Exhibition of Works by the Honored Artist of Russia Mickhail Verkholantsev at the Russian Academy of Arts

Dates: March 21 – April 09, 2017
Venue: Exhibition halls of the Russian Academy of Arts
            21 Prechistenka street, Moscow

The Russian Academy of Arts presents a solo exhibition of Mickhail Verkholantsev, the Honored Artist of Russia, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts timed to the artist’s 80th anniversary and 60th anniversary of his creative work. The exhibition of this recognized master of modern xylography, book design and illustrations entitled “Other Civilizations” features his graphic works, engravings, woodcuts, paintings produced in various years.

Mickhail Verkholantsev was born in Moscow in 1937 in the family of artists, he is a great grandson of the famous art collector N. V. Basnin, the engravings and drawings of whose collection constitute a large part of the graphic fund of A. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. In 1961 Verkholantsev graduated fr om S. Stroganov Moscow State Institute of Arts and Industry wh ere he studied under the noted masters:  V. Egorov, V. Kozlinsky, I. Gilter, Y. Sluchevsky.

In such a complicated and rare type of prints as a woodcut the artist has created his original art style distinguished by a combination of a perfect technique and expression. The themes of his woodcuts range from the Karelian epic “Kalevala”, Biblical and Gospel parables to the antiquity.

In the works of Mickhail Verkholantsev there is no reaction to trendy stylistic movements. Already in his student years he discovered for himself the mannerism and became passionately keen on the grotesques, painting, architecture, small plastic, works of musicians created in this style that is why his prints with their silver glittering and the palette of his paintings are full of the spirit of mannerism.  

Mickhail Verkholantsev is known as a designer of books and magazines. He worked for such noted publishing houses as “RT”, “Soviet Writer”, “Molodaya Gvardiya”, “Pravda”, “Children’s Literature”, “Rainbow”, “Science”, “Pedagogics”, “Soyuzinforkino”. The artist has been involved in the publication of more than 1000 books, albums, magazines. Since 2010 among his most known   illustrations have been prints for the story of Leo Tolstoi “The Kreutzer Sonata”, illustrations to books published by the Deich publishing house (novels and stories by Andrei Platonov, “An Ordinary Story” by Ivan Goncharov, novels and stories by Leo Tolstoi). In 2014 the artist became a laureate of the All-Russian competition “The Image of a Book” as a designer of the book “Virtues and Vices”.

Mickhail Verkholantsev is a holder of many prizes, medals and diplomas at the international competitions and biennale of graphic art in Russia, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Turkey, Poland, China, Switzerland. His solo exhibitions of prints and illustrations were held in many Russian cities including Irkutsk, Tobolsk, Tyumen, Voronezh, Ufa, etc.  





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