Preview Lot
ALEXANDER ANUFRIEV(Russian, 1940-2024)The Lovers
24 June 2025, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsUS$2,500 - US$3,500
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Jewel Bernier
Cataloguer
Bids (Bonhams Skinner)
Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
Claire Dettelbach
Cataloguer
ALEXANDER ANUFRIEV (Russian, 1940-2024)
The Lovers
signed, and dated 'A.A. 82' (lower right)
oil on canvas
36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 60.9 cm)
framed 40 9/16 x 28 11/16 x 1 3/8 in. (103.0 x 72.8 x 3.5 cm)
signed, and dated 'A.A. 82' (lower right)
oil on canvas
36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 60.9 cm)
framed 40 9/16 x 28 11/16 x 1 3/8 in. (103.0 x 72.8 x 3.5 cm)
Footnotes
Provenance
The collection of Norman & Myrna Katz.
N.B.
Anufriev believed that each person who enters this world is accompanied by a Guardian Angel, and from this belief was borne the motif that he returned to throughout his career. In the present composition, a Guardian Angel looks down upon a couple as they sit huddled closely together, watching over them, protecting them, and illuminating the encroaching darkness.
Alexander Anufriev was born in Moscow in 1940. In 1963 he received his BFA from Grecov College of Fine Arts in Odessa. Anufriev soon moved permanently to Odessa and became a central figure in the non-conformist art movement in the Soviet Union, where artists were holding invitation-only exhibitions out of their apartments. After surviving the 1966 earthquake that leveled the capitol of Uzbekistan, Anufriev continued to create spiritually charged works which went against the secular views of the Soviet Union. He was finally granted an exit permit in 1980 and emigrated to the United States, leaving behind his body of work which he was barred from taking with him. Anufriev settled in Boston where he met his wife Anisimova, a cellist and composer from Chechnya who was finishing a music doctorate at Yale University. The two began collaborating on Anufriev's paintings, infusing her music into his angelic compositions which increasingly featured musical instruments.
Alexander Anufriev's pieces are part of the permanent collections of the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Jersey and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, as well as at institutions in the former Soviet Union.