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Rebel art from the Soviet Union

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Some of the art was rebellious enough to face the bulldozer. Other work was nonconformist enough to be left alone. 

Under the Iron Curtain: Modern Art from the Soviet Bloc, being shown at Hebrew Home’s Derfner Judaica Museum features artists working in the Soviet Union or one of its satellite states in the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibit features two very different styles: Socialist realism pieces permitted by the Soviet Union, often lovely paintings of the Kremlin or other Soviet landmarks, and art created by dissidents, later known as nonconformists.

One of the central figures of the nonconformist movement, as well as a central artist to this exhibit, Oscar Rabin, organized an exhibit of unofficial art in 1974. Within hours of opening, Soviet authorities razed the exhibit with bulldozers and water cannons. Artists, journalists and bystanders were arrested. Some were injured, and many works of art were destroyed. Mr. Rabin was later exiled by the Soviet Union to France, but he was able to show his art in Western Europe.

Almost all of the work in the exhibit was acquired by the Hebrew Home’s art collection from London’s Grosvenor Gallery, which was founded in 1960 by Eric Estorick and his wife Salome. The Grosvenor was a hot spot for under-the-radar Eastern European artists to display their work. Mr. Rabin’s first solo show was at Grosvenor in 1965, and one of those paintings, “Bread and Factory,” is being shown. 

Jacob Reingold, the home’s previous executive director, met Mr. Estorick through a family friend and started buying up art by Eastern Europeans. 

“So we ended up with all of these amazing works and just in the last two years, they had sort of been hanging all around the home,” Assistant Curator Emily O’Leary said. “Due to the way we transferred over our database in the 90s, a lot of the information about the artist and who they were had been lost.” 

For the last two years, Ms. O’Leary has tracked down the names and titles of the art. Sometimes, titles or artist names written in Cyrillic script on the backs of paintings. Other times, Ms. O’Leary translated titles from Russian, Czech, Hungarian and Albanian into English with the help of Russian-speaking high school student, Riverdalian Anna Tarasova.

Ms. O’Leary’s favorite part of the show is the work by Czechoslovakian artist Richard Fremund, a member of May 57, a group of artists who rejected the Soviet Union’s restrictions on art.

One of the few mentions of Mr. Fremund in the history of art is in a 1956 New York Times article, “Prague Art Show Scorns ‘Realism.’”

“Without permission of any kind, 28-year-old Richard Fremund opened an exhibition Tuesday night in the only Prague gallery not controlled by the Ministry of Culture. His ninety paintings and drawings include bosomy nudes, abstracts and, in fact, a bit of everything except ‘Socialist realism,’ the only approved style of painting in Communist lands,” read The Times

Four of Mr. Fremund’s oil paintings are included in the exhibit, each a brightly-colored abstract depiction of a Czech townscape.

“This was the type of art being created at the time, that to this day, the West is relatively unexposed to,” Ms. O’Leary said.

Under the Iron Curtain: Modern Art from the Soviet Bloc, will be shown at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale’s Derfner Judaica Museum and the Elma and Milton A. Gilbert Pavilion Gallery, through Sunday, March 31. For more information, call 718-581-1000.

Art, living, focus on, Soviet Union, Adam Wisnieski,

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