Vladimir Rusakov

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Vlady (born Vladimir Kirbalchich Rusakov on June 15, (1920 in Petrograd, Russia – July 21, 2005, Cuernavaca, Morelos) was a Mexican painter.

[edit] Biography

Vlady's father Victor Lvovich Kibalchich was a Belgian-born Russian revolutionary and a French-language writer (under the pen-name Victor Serge). He spent part of his youth in Orenburg (Kazakstan) where Stalin had deported his father and part in Western Europe (Brussels and Paris) in exile. At a very young age Vlady was exposed to world issues, political and esthetics.

After the Nazis invaded France, Vlady followed his father to Mexico where he began a career of painter. In 1947 Vlady married Isabel Díaz Fabela. He became a Mexican citizen two years later. Even though he held a great admiration to Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, his painting was in strong reaction against their nationalistic and didactic stances. With a group of young Mexican painters (Alberto Gironella, Héctor Xavier, José Bartolí and José Luis Cuevas) he initiated the so called "Rupture Generation").

He studied artwork in Europe (in the 1950s and 1960s, with the help of the French embassy in Mexico City and in New York City with a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His artwork was exhibited in Italy, Brazil and Argentina.

[edit] His artwork

He was a painter, muralist and printmaker and of the first of the abstract and impressionist movements in Mexico.

He painted the murals of the Miguel Lerdo de Tejada library of the Secretariat of the Treasure (Mexico), the Palacio Nacional (Nicaragua) and paintings in a permanent exhibit of the Orenburg Museum of Russia.

He was preparing a retrospective exhibit of his artwork expected to debut in 2006 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts). The Palacio still expects to hold the exhibit.

In 2004 he had announced he wanted to donate his collection of 4,601 pieces, drawing, paintings and etchings. On May 17, 2004 he donated the first 500 artworkds and the rest is currently at the artist's home.

He died at 85 of cáncer in his home-studio of the Mexican resort city Cuernavaca.

An exhaustive biography was published in December 2005 by Jean-Guy Rens under the title VLADY: DE LA REVOLUCION AL RENACIMIENTO, Siglo XXI Editores, Mexico, 266 pages.