Igor Smekalov, Portrait of a Woman and a Girl, 2009, Oil on Canvas

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Interior with two figures, magical realism, the artist captures a magical moment between a mother and daughter who are about … Read more Interior with two figures, magical realism, the artist captures a magical moment between a mother and daughter who are about to read a book. Light colors. Igor SMEKALOV (Orenburg, 1965) After traditional studies, Smekalov trained in Pasmurovo, a town in the Orenburg region where groups of artists met to work from life and exchange ideas. He later joined the Union of Russian Artists and the Sadki Academy, where he continued his search for a pure art, free from any social involvement. from this perspective, a discourse emerges, punctuated by works that convey a sense of his interior world and highlight the lyrical rendering of the subject. Smekalov's artistic training is also rich in references to Italian painting, as revealed by the delicate chromatic harmonies, the metaphysical interiors, and the still lifes with bowls and bottles, which hark back to the splendid example of Giorgio Morandi. Similarly, observing the canvases that tell of absorbed girls and young women, of faces permeated by a subtle melancholy, of rooms with collected figures, one senses a lesson that, at times, seems to lead us back to Casorati. His path is therefore the fruit of a complex temperament, of a serious, demanding, and courageous choice of language, of an expressive line characterized by the quality of his drawing, by the study of the nude from life, by the transcription of evocative still lifes onto canvas. Born in 1965 in Orenburg, a city on the Ural River located at the eastern edge of Russia, where he lives and works. Graduated from the Orenburg Art School in 1984. 1990-1995 These are formative years, marked in particular by what Smekalov himself calls the "adventure" of Pasmurovo, a town in the Orenburg region where groups of artists met to study, work from life, and exchange ideas. These experiences culminated in group exhibitions titled Pasmurovo, held in Orenburg from 1991 to 1995. In 1993, he joined the Union of Russian Artists. In 1994, he became a member of the Sadki Academy art group, whose history he would publish in 2008. This group of protesting artists, resistant to official art, met clandestinely in the cellars of Orenburg in the mid-1970s. To escape the oppressive climate of the city, they took refuge in the village of Sadki, on the shores of the Sea of Azov, sharing this experience of human and artistic freedom, and later in the village of Arkhiz, at an altitude of 2,800 meters. It was in this return to the essential, immersed in nature, its colors, and its light, that the fundamental principles of their artistic research were defined. In the following years, as the political situation also changed, new artists were admitted to the group, driven by the same spirit as their predecessors. 2002 He is among the artists included in the volume Galassia, dedicated to seven Orenburg painters. 2004 He graduated from the University of Magnitogorsk. 2009 He obtained a Doctorate in Art. He teaches Drawing and Painting at the University of Orenburg. He is currently a curator at the Department of Graphic Arts at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. MUSEUMS Orenburg, Museum of Fine Arts This piece is attributed to the mentioned designer/maker. It has no attribution mark and no
official proof of authenticity,
however it is well documented in design history. I take full responsibility for any authenticity



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