Anatoly Zverev

Anatoly Timofeevich Zverev was a Russian artist, a participant in the nonconformist movement and the founder of Russian expressionism in the 1960s. Anatoly Zverev - was and remains the legend of the artistic life of Moscow second half of the 20th century. Zverev was born in 1931, died in 1986, but for the short 55 years of his life he left a huge artistic heritage. Zverev had multiple gifts: he was a brilliant painter, a virtuoso draftsman, an avant-garde poet, an ironic theoretician. Pablo Picasso called him "the best Russian draftsman", the playwright Jean Cocteau said "Zverev on his own performed the whole route of Western painting - from early Picasso to the present day", the famous French conductor Igor Markevich wrote - "Zverev is a case. The case of a man who, without knowing it, has rediscovered the history of world art. “ Anatoly Zverev did not receive an academic art education. He graduated from a vocational school as a housepainter, a fact which gave him extraordinary freedom in the choice of materials. He himself believed that a real artist can create even without paints. He wrote with charcoal and juice of herbs, beets, used cereals, cottage cheese and tooth powder, he himself jokingly said - “No paints, give me water from paints!” Like a freelance artist of the 19th century, he developed his gift in workshops and studios, in Sokolniki Park and in the Moscow Zoo whiere he drew sketches, he was also a regular visitor to the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum. Zverev considered Leonardo da Vinci himself to be his immediate teacher. Among Zverev's favorite artists were Rembrandt, Velasquez, Von Gogh, Savrasov and Vrubel. Anatoly Zverev was an absolutely free spirit: an artist and a person, formally belonging to the circle of non-conformists - unofficial artists. But in reality, his work does not fit into any trend or association. He freely traveled through styles and eras, did not borrow - he created his own unique artistic world. A world that can still be recognised at a glance.