Nationality Russian | Name Mikhail Odnoralov | |
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Full Name Levidov, Mikhail Nikolayevich Known for painting,graphics,curator Movement expressionismsurrealism Books Michael Odnoralov: Alice from the Lower East Side | ||
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.
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Biography
In 1957, Odnoralov received early art lessons at Robert Falk's private studio, and from 1958–1960, 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 1966–1979, 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.