24 may 2009 - 31 july 2009
Vasily Sitnikov and his school

First suggested to me by one thoughtful collector from Moscow, the idea of holding an exhibition of the works of Vasily Sitnikov required almost a year and a great deal of effort to take shape. It is now obvious that far more time is needed to collate the most valuable part of the artist’s heritage, which is scattered throughout the world. This does not mean, of course, that our retrospective has not succeeded. The exhibition covers all stages in Sitnikov’s career, from his earliest sketches and the development of his artistic method to his final émigré paintings. The sheer scale of the master’s talent, however, suggests a clear need to bring all of his works together in one show or at least in one book.

One particular difficulty was the question of authorship and Vasily Sitnikov’s very broad understanding of this word. Not every work signed by the artist was physically created by his own hand. His snowflake monastery scenes were especially popular among foreigners, and Sitnikov would happily sign a student’s work, before presenting it to a collector looking for a colourful Russian winter subject. On the other hand, many of the “lessons” taught to his numerous students were so scrupulously “corrected” by the artist himself that he seems justified in calling them his own.

During the Soviet period, Vasily Sitnikov’s school was a unique phenomenon. Developing his own method of painting, the artist constantly studied it, working alongside and in tandem with his students. This joint work produced an array of independent artists, demonstrating Sitnikov’s talent for tuition. The master’s school was possibly the most important component of his career and personality.

The early sketches and studies on exhibition offer a fascinating insight into how Sitnikov conceived his method and how he set and resolved various tasks (generalisation and fluidity of form, illumination and location of patches of light, manifesting the object from a “rarefied” environment, etc.). An attentive and witty observer, he delighted in amusing characters and funny scenes. Even his early sketches offer a foretaste of the caricature images that would later flood his satirical genre scenes. His self-irony — the attribute of a clever and subtle man — is vividly captured in a range of self-portraits incorporated in these scenes.

A whole series of exhibits depict a church (monastery) in a field or simply a field. Illustrating the artist’s own spatial-philosophical understanding, they constitute one of the main themes of his oeuvre. The selection of self-portraits from various periods is particularly fine. A separate room has been assigned to the artist’s “lessons”, ranging from “stretching” and “intestines” to perfected figures that are finished works in their own right.

Several later works show Sitnikov’s oeuvre in a pure form, throwing fresh light on the scope of his talent as a painter. Memory of Moscow, which took three years to paint in Austria, is an undoubted masterpiece.