Auction house Phillips de Pury & Company announced a new exhibition of work of our compatriot, the painter, Alexander Melamid Gallery Charles Saatchi (Charles Saatchi). The exhibition, which opened in the walls of the gallery on May 21, will be presented to 15 monumental paintings, which can be not only consider, but buy. All these pictures painted from life in the spirit of the classic works of old masters, but the heroes of Melamid became American hip-hop musicians, the Roman priests and nuns, as well as the Russian oligarchs. Each of the three themes focus on five products. Thus, the portraits of abbess, a Roman monk, and a Maltese priest accommodate side by side with portraits of Snoop Dogg and 50 cent, as well as images of influential Russians Leonid Strunin, Pyotr Aven, and others.

Alexander Melamid has long worked in collaboration with the artist Vitaly Komar . Together they became the founders of Sots art direction, combining features of socialist realism and pop art. In the long struggle with the official Soviet art, which lasted almost 40 years, they have gained a reputation of these revolutionaries. Since 1978, Alexander Melamid lived and worked in the United States, together with Vitaly Vitaly Komar they have spent more than 60 exhibitions. Their works bought by representatives of such major museums as the Metropolitan, New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Solomon Guggenheim Museum (New York), as well as London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

In 2003, the artists have decided to divorce and to creativity at a time. Shortly thereafter, the son of Alexander Melamid introduced him to the most famous characters, the music of hip-hop industry, including Whoo Kid and 50 cent. Then it started to cycle, which will be presented in the Saatchi Gallery. After the musicians were written portraits of the clergy, and portraits of Russian oligarchs have become the most recent in the series. All the paintings the artist made with nature in its free and subtle manner, giving new impetus to the genre of portrait painting, and the captured shift spheres of influence in the world.

material produced Catherine Onuchin

Sources: phillipsdepury.com , artdaily.com , artinvestment.ru