Gleb Bogomolov

Born in Leningrad in 1933, Gleb Bogomolov was among the organisers of the first exhibitions of Soviet unofficial art at the Ivan Gaza and Nevsky Cultural Centres in Leningrad. Since 1974, he had taken part in more than 200 exhibitions in Russia and abroad. One of the most prominent artists of our time, Bogomolov passed away in 2016.

Rather than merely alluding to the cultural traditions of Late Antiquity and Christianity, Gleb Bogomolov’s art recreates a certain visual mythology, a realm of yearning for the bygone Byzantium and Ancient Rus, for the Third Rome that never came to be. His multi-layered paintings with elements of collage and expertly imitated defects are based around the blending of exquisite textures and large colour fields with inclusions of gilding. Here, the figurative exists alongside the abstract and the physical borders on the metaphysical. Succinct and monumental, these canvases seem to contain the solemn mournfulness of time. Crosses, arks, mandorlas (the distinctive elongated scarlet aureolas appearing in icon painting), pillars, columns, archetypal characters, and metaphysical abstractions are all present in Bogomolov’s oeuvre.