NEIZVESTNY Ernst I.

April 9, 1925 (Sverdlovsk)

sculptor.

until 1942 in Sverdlovsk attended school for artistically gifted children. In 1942 enrolled in art school Arts of the USSR.

he volunteered to the front in 1945 after being wounded demobilized. Awarded the Order of the Red Star.

In 1946-1947 he studied at the Art Academy in Riga, the Latvian SSR, in 1947-1954 - at the Moscow Art Institute. VISurikova and concurrently attended classes at the Philosophical Faculty of Moscow State University. His student work were purchased of the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum.

In 1955 joined the Union of Artists of the USSR, before emigrating (1976) - a member of the sculpture section of the Moscow branch of the USSR Union of Artists.

in 1959 won the All-Union competition for the creation of the monument of Victory in Great Patriotic War.

first solo exhibition was held in E. Unknown Moscow club "Friendship" in 1961. In 1962 in Moscow State University held a joint exhibition with V. Yankilevsky; all subsequent solo exhibitions were held only abroad: in the UK, Austria, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, France, USA, Sweden, Israel, Germany - more than 20 exhibitions around the world .

In 1954-1962 Unknown participated in the youth of the republican and All-Union Exhibition in Moscow, including exhibition at the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957, where the sculptor has received two awards; All-Union Art Exhibition "40 years of the Komsomol "In 1958, exhibition of artists' studios E. Belutin (" Taganka ") in 1962 with the participation of Yu Sooster, V. Yankylevsky and Yu Sobolev-Noleva.

Repetition exhibition Taganka "together with the exhibition" 30 years MOSKh "(Manege, Moscow, 1962) was subjected to sharp criticism from Khrushchev.

«... After the episode with Khrushchev, I was ten years was thrown out of circulation as a professional artist. I managed to publish the illustrations for Dostoevsky, to put the sculpture in Riga and the Crimea, but they were booked until 1962. They were simply transferred to the stone and metal. Under his name to me in those ten years did not sell anything. But as a mason-sculptor, I was earning very well ... "(Ernst Unknown).

Only after the victory in an international competition to create a monument for the Aswan High Dam in 1971 (Egypt), Ernst Unknown able to return to the official artistic activity.

In 1970 his novel Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" with his illustrations.

In 1974 Neizvestny created tombstone Khrushchev at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

In 1976, sculptor emigrated to Switzerland and then in 1977 moved to New York.

In the U.S. Neizvestny lectured on art and philosophy at Columbia and Harvard universities, in 1983 he was elected Professor of Humanities University of Oregon.

In 1986 he was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the New York Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1989 became a member of Neizvestny European Academy of Arts, Sciences and humanities.

in 1987 in the Swedish city Uttersberge museum opened "The Tree of Life", dedicated to the works of Ernst Unknown.

In 1989 Neizvestny lectured on the culture at Moscow State University. MV Lomonosov Moscow

In 1990 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) was founded by Ernst Museum of the Unknown. In the same year the sculptor designed the monument to Andrei Sakharov.

In 1991 Neizvestny newly arrived in Russia - to work on a memorial in memory of victims of Stalinism in Magadan, Vorkuta and Yekaterinburg.

In the early fifties, that is still in the Stalin era, Ernst unknown created a series of sculptures "The war - it ...", which was rejected by a romantic attitude to the war, so characteristic of Soviet literature and art. The war was part of the body, which depicted the sculptor, and penetrates it as alien to the living element. Expressive series "War - it ..." provoked angry protests from supporters of socialist realism. From a military theme sculptor turned to the topic of "Robots and poluroboty" in which she felt the first intuitive idea of "man and machine" transformed into the idea of "civilization, machine and man».

«... Then I stopped to meet the individual figures, and I began to create entire albums of drawings under the title" Gigantomachy, or the Battle of the giants ».

here and the people and characters are organized into groups, and groups in cycles. And in these groups and cycles consisted of a topic, found, for example, in the series "War - this ..." and "Robots and poluroboty" (Ernst Unknown. Exhibition collection A. Glezer, 1995).

soon appeared in the plans of the Unknown project "Tree of Life," which, he says, is the main project of his life. Tree of Life "- a composition that is intended for the artist incorporates a variety of trends and directions that exist in the art. Tree of Life "- a structure, a structure in which there are no interior or exterior in the usual sense, which is defined and its size - not less than one hundred meters. This building, inside which you want to get. Inside are various works of art: paintings, sculptures, reliefs and elements of real equipment. Thus, the "Tree of Life, if it is built, will become a museum, which will draw in not only the achievements of art, but also elements of technical progress.