VLADISLAV PROVOTOROV (B. 1947) Untitled (Female and Male Torsos)

signed in Cyrillic and dated ‘V Provotorov 77’ (along lower right edge) oil on canvas 100.5 x 60.5 cm Painted in 1977, the present work dates from a period of particularly active involvement by Vladislav Provotorov in the Soviet nonconformist art movement. The same year, the Twenty Moscow Artists group was founded, of which he was a member. Provotorov studied at the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute and graduated from the Stroganov Moscow Higher School of Industrial Art in 1972. During the 1970s, he participated in unofficial apartment exhibitions held in artists’ homes, including that of Oscar Rabin. In September 1975, he took part in the exhibition of nonconformist art at the VDNKh House of Culture in Moscow, one of the first officially permitted exhibitions of its kind, although it was held without public announcement. During the 1980s and 1990s, Provotorov explored religious, apocalyptic and mystical subjects in a style reminiscent of the Northern Renaissance. In the mid-1990s, he gradually withdrew from active artistic practice to pursue religious studies. He subsequently entered the Orthodox priesthood, becoming an archpriest and rector of the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Pavlovskaya Sloboda, near Moscow.