Mikhail Chemiakin (born 1943)
Mikhail Chemiakin is a Russian painter, stage designer, sculptor and publisher, and a representative of the nonconformist art tradition of St. Petersburg.
Chemiakin was born to a military family. His father, a Kabardian from the Caucasus Mountains Mikhail Chemiakin. Chemiakin's mother was an actress and poet Yulia Predtechenskaya of Russian noble heritage.
Mihail Chemiakin spent his early years in East Germany where his father served. His family returned to the Soviet Union in 1957. He studied at the secondary school of art affiliated with the Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Leningrad, but was expelled from it in 1961 for «aesthetic deprivation» of classmates and failing to conform to Socialist Realism norms.
He later got a job at the Hermitage Museum. With his colleagues from the museum Chemiakin organized an exhibition in 1964, after which the director of the museum was fired and all the participants forced to resign. In 1967 he founded the group of artists called St. Petersburg. Together with the philosopher Vladimir Ivanov he created a treatise called Metaphysical Synthesism dedicated to «new forms of icon painting based on studying of religious art of all epochs and nations». He was subjected to forced psychiatric treatment and in 1971 he was exiled from the Soviet Union.
He settled in France where he published Apollon-77, an almanac of post-Stalinist art, poetry, and photography. He moved to New York in 1981. Since the early 1990s he started visiting Russia once again, working on street shows by Slava Polunin, ballets by the Mariinsky Theatre, a TV series by Russia-K and other government-backed projects. In 2007 he returned to France where he currently resides.
His works are in The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; Tretyakov gallery, Moscow; many other leading museums and prominent collections of Russia, Europe and the United States.
Mikhail Chemiakin, Still life with Bread, mixed media on paper, 15 x 22 in (38 x 55.8 cm)
Mikhail Chemiakin, Portrait of Nijinsky, mixed media on paper, 180.3 × 124.5 cm (70.9 x 49 in)
