Mikhail Shemyakin

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Mikhail Shemyakin (left) and Vladimir Vysotsky (right). Cover of Shemyakin's book of illustrations to Vysotsky's poetry

Shemyakin's statue of Peter the Great, in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Mikhail Mikhaylovich Shemyakin (Russian: Михаи́л Михайлович Шемя́кин, born 4 May 1943, Moscow) is a Russian (ethnic Kabardian) painter, stage designer, sculptor and publisher, and a controversial representative of the nonconformist art tradition of St. Petersburg.

Shemyakin was born to a military family and spent his early years in the East Germany. His family returned to the Soviet Union in 1957 and he studied at the secondary school of art affiliated with the Il’ya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), until he was expelled for failing to conform to the Socialist Realism norms in 1971.

After leaving the Soviet Union, he settled in France until he moved to New York City in 1981. While in Paris, France, he published Apollon-77, which was an almanac of post-Stalinist art, poetry and photography.

His work often exhibits the surreal grotesque, portraying the world as a colourful carnival, intimidating the viewer in its terrifying metamorphoses.

Shemyakin is said to have led an anarchic, bohemian life, and the poet Andrey Voznesensky described him as the "black prince of the Russian underworld".

Interestingly, Shemyakin, though Russian born, signs all his works in his French name, “M. Chemiakine”, though when titled, his artwork is always in Russian. Also, the place of his signature varies from canvas to canvas either in the lower right or lower left corners, though it is always on the bottom of the canvas.

Currently, Shemyakin is in Russia, working with director Stanislav Sokolov and the studio Soyuzmultfilm to create a stop motion-animated feature film based on the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann, called Gofmaniada (Гофманиада). The earliest that the film is expected to be released is in 2008.

[edit] References

The Grove Dictionary of Art, by Jane Shoaf Turner (Ed.), Grove's Dictionaries. ISBN 1-884446-00-0
Kolodzei Art Foundation
Kolodzei Art Foundation and Kolodzei Collection of Russian and Eastern European Art
Shemyakin's Official Site

[edit] Further reading

Mihail Shemyakin; Vol. 1: Russian Period, Paris Period; Vol. 2: Transformations, New York Period, 1986 by Mikhail Shemyakin, Mosaic Press, NY, 1986.. ISBN 0-8896-2327-9
M. Shemyakin: A View of the Artist Through the Media, 1962-1999, by Ilya Bass and Alan Lamb, Woollyfish Imprints, 2000. ISBN 0-9705728-0-8
Staging the Nutcracker, by Mikhail Shemyakin, Rizzoli, 2001. ISBN 0-8478-2346-6