Alexander Volkov
1886-1957
Born in Fergana in Central Asia, Volkov is unique in being of Uzbek extraction and yet stylistically very much an artist of the Russian Avant Garde.
In 1906 he started his college studies in the physics and mathematics faculty at the St Petersburg University, but abandoned them two years later to join the studio of Vladimir Makovsky at the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1912 Volkov moved to Kiev to train at its School of Arts, and in 1916 returned to Uzbekistan, where he lived until the end of his life.
Initially Volkov was greatly influenced by Vrubel, but following the move to Uzbekistan his work became marked by the influence of Matisse, Derain, and the bright colours of Central Asia. By 1920 he was also experimenting in the field of near-abstract art, and became close in his manner to Malevich.
In 1919 Volkov was named the first director of the State Museum of Arts of Central Asia in Tashkent. From 1929 to 1946 he taught at the Tashkent School of Arts, and in 1931-1932 organized the so-called ‘Volkov’s Brigade’ of painters, art critics and journalists, with the purpose of creating objects and propaganda of art.
In 1934 Volkov went to Moscow to participate in his first big exhibition held at the State Museum of Arts of the Peoples of the Orient, after which several of his canvases were acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum. In the same year, Volkov exhibited in the West, at an exhibition of Soviet Art in Philadelphia.
Between 1934 and 1936 the campaign against formalism in art began in the USSR. Volkov was declared a formalist and his canvasses labelled counter-revolutionary; his pictures were removed from museums. He was expelled from his posts, lost all his money, and was forced to live in isolation until his death in 1957.
Yet the 1960s saw a re-assessment. In 1967, a first posthumous exhibition was held at the Moscow Museum of Oriental Art – 33 years after his first exhibition there. In 2007 a major personal exhibition was held at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
‘Volkov is moved by fire – by the purple and the gold. His skies are golden and the ground is multicoloured, and an unquenchable flame lurks beneath. By their rich colours and rhythm they provide a description of the East which cannot be found elsewhere. His art is European and leftist in form. In many works, there is more Paris than Tashkent, more Matisse and Picasso than an Eastern carpet.’ — Alexei Sidorov
