- Source: Mikhail Odnoralov
Mikhail Nikolayevich Odnoralov / Levidov (Russian: Михаи́л Никола́евич Однора́лов / Леви́дов / Michael Odnoralov, 10 November 1944 – 22 January 2016) was a Russian nonconformist artist who was well known in Moscow in the 1970s. He spent the second half of his life in New York City.
Biography
In 1957, Odnoralov received early art lessons at Robert Falk's private studio, and from 1958 to 1960, he attended art school in Krasnaya Presnya, Moscow.
Odnoralov took part in the second Russian avant-garde movement. However, he was also a member of the USSR Union of Artists and showed his paintings at official exhibitions. From 1966 to 1979, his paintings were frequently exhibited at the Union of Moscow Artists.
His art studio was sometimes a gathering site for underground artists to plan their next collective show or to discuss one another's work, and he was briefly detained for his role in the Bulldozer Exhibition in 1974. A couple weeks after his release, his paintings were displayed before crowds in Izmaylovsky Park.
The Soviet regime was suspicious of Odnoralov not mainly for the content of his paintings (although the Communist authorities did not like the icons depicted in his works, which clearly reflected Russian religious philosophy), but for his uncensored social activity. The KGB urged his neighbors to file complaints claiming that the guests at his studio disturbed them.
In 1980, Odnoralov emigrated from the USSR. He lived and worked on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He died on 22 January 2016 in New York City.
Selected exhibitions
May 1961: Summer Theatre, Tarusa, Kaluzhskaya Oblast. Joint exhibition with other Moscow artists such as Igor Vulokh, Mai Miturich-Khlebnikov, Eduard Steinberg and Boris Sveshnikov.
29 September 1974: II Autumn Open-Air Art Exhibition, Izmaylovsky Park.
20–30 September 1975: VDNKh, Culture Pavilion.
1983: "Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union", Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.
1987: "Retrospection 1957–1987", State Exhibition Hall Gallery Belyaevo, Moscow.
1988: "Russian Still Life", Museum of Russian Art, Jersey City.
1997: "Alice from the Lower East Side", Lehman College Art Gallery, New York City. Solo exhibition.
2003: "Memories: Russian Postmodern Nostalgia", Yeshiva University Museum, New York City.
5–28 February 2010: "Retrospection", Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Solo exhibition.
6 June–12 July 2010: Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg. Solo exhibition.
Further reading
Alexander Borovsky; Donald Kuspit; Solomon Volkov (2010). Mikhail Odnoralov. Retrospective : The State Russian Museum. Almanac, № 264 (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: State Russian Museum, Palace Editions. ISBN 9785933323105.
Другое искусство: Москва 1956—1976. В двух томах (in Russian). Vol. 1, 2. Moscow: Художественная галерея «Московская коллекция», СП «Интербук». 1991. pp. 81, 211, 217, 223, 233–235, 241, 242, 248, 251 (I), 22, 61, 135, 191 (II).
Museum collections
Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia)
Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg, Russia)
Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University (Durham, North Carolina)
Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, New Jersey)
Hofstra University Museum (Hempstead, New York)
Museum of Contemporary Russian Art in Exile (Montgeron, France)
References
External links
Artworks created from 1966 till 1994 on artnet.com.
Art attacked in Belyaevo, Moscow. Sept. 15, 1974, Bulldozer Exhibition.
Art auction results (2007—2012).
Anna Tolstova (2 Feb 2010). "Из пальто сделали знамя : Михаил Одноралов в Третьяковской галерее, Tolstova, Anna". Коммерсантъ (in Russian). Moscow. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
Back in the U.S.S.R. Mikhail Odnoralov Show at the Marble Palace. By Alexander Belenky / The St.Petersburg Times Nº 38 (1577). Friday, May 28, 2010, p. 6—7.