We are delighted to be putting on a personal exhibition of Dmitry Lebedev at TEFAF Maastricht and Paris Salon du Dessin this year and are offering you the first glimpse of our exhibition catalogue. Follow this link

The history of new discoveries in the art world is well-known, if increasingly rare. Dmitry Lebedev (1899-1922) is just such a discovery, a prodigy of extraordinary breadth and talent, an artist whose inner torment reflected the ongoing political turmoil in the new Soviet state, especially in Odessa, his home city.

His work was only shown once during his lifetime, four works at the December 1919 Society of Independent Artists in Odessa, all of which we will be showing at TEFAF, and remained hidden for nearly 100 years before surfacing, again in Odessa, in May 2013 at a personal exhibition of 62 works at the International Club of Odessans – ‘The Personal File of Dmitry Lebedev’.

Lebedev’s vision fits into the broader canon of European Symbolism, one that owes more to Beardsley and Kubin than to Moreau or Redon, but his own oeuvre was shaped by the Revolutionary chaos of Odessa that surrounded him. ‘From 1917 to 1920 the government of Odessa changed many times with Soviet power only taking hold on February 8th 1920. This entire time, irrespective of the regime, one type of power ruled above all – gangster power’, wrote Gleb Vysheslavsky of a Revolution and Civil War, in which over 10 million perished.

Social cataclysm, regime change, pestilence, starvation, and the chaos of Odessa, provided the background to Lebedev’s Symbolism, and herein lie the main themes of his work – dreams, mythology, religion, death and loneliness.

Entirely self-taught, Lebedev only began his artistic studies the year before. Discovering his talent early, Lebedev worked as a scenery designer at the Odessa Gymnasium at the end of his three-year study course in 1918. Already known to the local artistic milieu after exhibiting at the Salon, Lebedev enrolled in the private studio of Kirill Kostandi, an Odessa-based artist with a major influence on Ukrainian Art of the 20th century, on September 3, 1920.

Tragedy pervades Lebedev’s output, with its concentration on the spiritual and the other-worldly, reflecting the instability of the day. Church bells, images of Paradise, saints, figures praying and the Underworld dominate. Lebedev’s sense of tragedy was fulfilled on August 4th, 1922 when he died, less than two years into his artistic education, of typhus, as had so many Odessans before and after him.

He died, according to the records, ‘without the presence of relatives’, but his burial was witnessed by a friend of his son, Valentin Ivanovich Bulgak, who became the keeper of the artist’s legacy ensuring that, 100 years after his death, the work of Lebedev is again known to us.

It is a legacy we are proud to share.

12 – 19 March 2026| Stand 611 | TEFAF, Maastricht

24 – 31 March | Stand 5 | Paris Salon du Dessin