VLADIMIR YAKOVLEV (1934-1998)

Born in the town of Balakhna, near Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Received no specialized art education. He worked as a photographer and retoucher for the Iskusstvo publishing house and studied under Mikhail Alpatov, an expert in Russian and Western European art history and also a member of the Academy of the Arts. Yakovlev’s work was significantly influenced by the Sixth World Festival of Youth and Students of 1957 in Moscow. Later, the artist met Grobman and Nemukhin and participated in an exhibition with Shteinberg. Yakovlev began exhibiting no later than 1963. Yakovlev is one of the most dramatic figures in the history of the Moscow underground. His compositions are informed by German Neo-Expressionism and reveal an open, unprotected world endowed with cosmic awareness.

His favorite subjects are portraits and flowers, lonely and suffering.

The artist suffered from progressive blindness and metal instability and died in 1998.

Vladimir Yakovlev’s works can be found many public and private collections in Russia, USA and Europe