Talk

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin

In-gallery talk

Wednesday 5 April 2017 2.30 - 3pm

Meet in Gallery VIII, Main Galleries, Burlington House.

Free with exhibition ticket. No booking required.

Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932

In this in-gallery talk, Andrew Spira discusses paintings by artist Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin in front of the works themselves.

In the tumult that followed the Russian Revolution, veering towards rigorous non-objectivity on the one hand and a contempt for the bourgeois tradition of "easel painting" on the other, the work of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin quietly held its ground. But the subtleties and sensitivities of Petrov-Vodkin's paintings were more informed by the radical agendas of his contemporaries than it would initially appear. Andrew Spira explores the work of Petrov-Vodkin in an exhibition gallery room dedicated solely to the work of this fascinating artist.

Andrew Spira is an independent teacher, writer and curator. His book The Avant-Garde Icon: Russian Avant-Garde Art and the Icon Painting Tradition was published in 2008. He is currently completing a new book on the notion of personal identity and cultural conventions in the European tradition.

Free with an exhibition ticket. No booking required; limited headsets available, offered on a first come first served basis.

Free with exhibition ticket. No booking required.