At an auction in London, the master’s painting was sold for 124 thousand 400 dollars, which became a record among Ukrainian artists
For fifteen years, Anatoly Krivolap searched for “his” color, so that in the early nineties he could become one of the most successful Ukrainian artists, and in the early 2000s, the most expensive. A painting by Anatoly Dmitrievich crossed the next price milestone a month ago - the work “Horse. Night" was sold at auction in London for $124,400. And in the spring of this year, his creation was auctioned in New York for 98 thousand dollars. However, money matters do not really bother the Ukrainian artist. Many years ago he left Kyiv, settled in a village near Yagotin and reluctantly left his beloved workshop. He doesn't wear expensive watch, indifferent to decorations, food and everyday life. He says that living in the village has made him feel a little better, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything. Although, given his capabilities, he could have done it in a moment.
“I found more than 50 variations of the red shade.”
— Have you been told that the color of your eyes is exactly like the sky in the canvases you create?
- Never. Although, I remember, the girls admitted that when I look at the sky, my eyes turn blue. In fact, they are gray-blue in color. But my foster brother has dark blue, burning eyes. Stunning shade.
- But your favorite color is probably still red.
— For many years I painted only in this color. They recognized me thanks to the red. I found more than fifty variations of this shade! The red color is very strong. It can be festive and tragic. The entire emotional palette is in this one color. I have always been interested in how colors can be used to convey what you are experiencing. The palette is just a set of shades, behind which there are real feelings or the lack thereof.
— Has it always been like this in your life?
- As long as I can remember. Since childhood, I had the feeling that everything in life would turn out somehow special. My parents had nothing to do with art; they were orphans. My dad only has two years of education, and my mom didn’t go to school at all. But it was she who emotionally supported me and believed in me. She told me when I was little, I drew anywhere and with whatever I could. I could take a piece of coal, lean against the white wall of our house, and suddenly a horse would appear there. I learned to draw by myself. There was no one to show how to do it correctly. I remember in the library in Yagotin I found some faded book with drawing lessons from a pre-war edition. It became my first painting textbook.
- So, at a time when boys dreamed of becoming pilots and astronauts...
— The period of childhood, when I had not yet drawn, was probably the happiest in my life. Then creative fanaticism came, erasing almost everything from it. I could no longer be interested in anything other than painting. Dad worked as a machinist railway and wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He said: “You need to have a specialty. And painting is just pampering.” There were three brothers in our family, I was the youngest. He always joked, two brothers are smart, and the third is an artist. My family didn’t accept my profession for a long time; they didn’t even go to exhibitions. But I didn’t care - I couldn’t imagine any other life. My childhood was post-war years. We didn’t have a TV at home, and we were often left without electricity. In winter, after four in the evening it was already starting to get dark, there was nothing to do. I started drawing first out of boredom, and then moved on from real world to the one that understood best - the world of colors. Since I started drawing, I can’t see life as real.
*The painting, against which Anatoly Krivolap stands, is made in yellow, red and blue tones. It’s impossible to count how many shades there are on the canvas—a real storm of colors. It is impossible to take your eyes off the abstraction; in small lonely details everyone finds something of their own, hidden in the very depths of the soul. PHOTO: Sergey DATSENKO, “FACTS”
-You don’t even see people?
- I do not see. I either feel them or I don’t. I encode everything I encounter every day into a color palette.
- And what color am I?
— I would take a little green, draw a red line and another color, which is still hidden from me. I would make it gray so that I could repaint it later depending on the situation. I almost never use it at work green color. He's too calm for me. Doesn't reflect my energy, so it makes me nervous.
- What can we talk about white then?
- But it’s the other way around! I have practically no furniture at home, and the walls are white. Even in my youth I decided that the best home for me was a monk’s cell. White walls, minimalism. White color universal. Looking at it, I can see color programs. This is its value. White is for everyday life, green is for relaxation. All the rest are for work.
“It’s a dark night in the city, but in the village it’s... bright”
-What color are you?
- Red with a raspberry tint. Like your blouse. Even brighter.
- Two of yours latest paintings, sold for big money at world auctions, dark purple shades.
- This is what worries me now. I work in large series. If I start writing in a certain color, then I go deeper into it, as in “ gold mine" It so happened that the painting “Night. Horse" blue-violet. I don’t know what shade it will be tomorrow. Color is whole life. First you need to get used to it, find out the weak ones, strengths. Then pull it all out. And... let go. Everything is like in life. I wasn't always famous.
- Remember that time?
— I graduated from the Kiev Art Institute, and I was invited to work. It was a foundation where artists, many national and honored, worked. They paid decent money there. I painted a picture a month and received two thousand rubles for it! At that time, an engineer's salary was only 150 rubles. My still life took two days to complete and cost 500 rubles. Colossal money! But all the artists in the foundation depended on officials who came to us in luxurious Seagulls and decided whether to accept the work or not. These views were the most feared. I had already begun my experiments with color, which simply irritated many. I had to either submit or go free. I chose the second one. He carried out his experiments for 15 years with virtually no money. He did not die of hunger thanks to the Polish collector Ryszard Wroblewski. He came to Kyiv once a month and bought my works. Today he has 92 of them. He lived more or less decently until the early nineties. And in 1992 I was invited to an exhibition in Germany. My first work was sold for 12 thousand marks! At that time, a family in Ukraine could live for a month on 10 dollars. I became rich.
— And they settled in the very center of Kyiv.
— I moved to Kyiv after the eighth grade, when I studied at art school. Then he joined the army, went to college, and started earning money. And in the 90s I bought an apartment in the very center. From its windows one could see the Lysenko monument near Opera House. They recognized me and started buying my work. By the way, I was one of the first artists in Kyiv who raised the price for my canvases to a thousand dollars. At that time, in Ukraine, collectors bought paintings for 200, 300 dollars. Galleries began to refuse to exhibit my work, but I sold well abroad.
-What is the story when you burned your paintings?
- It was two years ago. In two days I burned about two thousand of my sketches. All of them are written on cardboard. You can’t even call them paintings; many remained unfinished. I deliberately painted on cardboard, knowing that no one would buy such works - galleries did not accept them, collectors were not interested in them. Only my Pole bought it. But I needed to train and grow. Now that I have become noticeable, I want only the best things to remain after me. Why sell the stages of your formation, such as half Crookedfoot? Then I decided to burn everything. Burned for two days, lighting a fire on own plot. And my grandson brought me work in a wheelbarrow. Only a small part of those paintings remains. But when I have time, I’ll sleep them too.
— It’s not for nothing that you are compared to the great Gogol... Do you have a favorite painting?
- There are two of them. My house, which was written in 1990. This is an iconic landscape. Having created it, I realized that I couldn’t raise the bar of creativity any higher. I will never be able to surpass the level of that work. The painting sold in Germany for 50 thousand marks. But, probably, the most precious thing for me is my first blue abstraction. I have it at home, I will never sell it.
- So, the white walls of your house are still covered with paintings?
- No, they are clean. I have the canvases. And not only mine. Since his student days he has been involved in collecting. I have work to do famous Nicholas Glushchenko. This is such a boost.
— You can afford to live in any city in the world. Nevertheless, they left Kyiv and moved to a village several tens of kilometers from the capital.
— There are places where you want to work. And there are those in which you begin to hate yourself. I love Kyiv, but I stopped working there. And in the village I create! I have a fantastic place. The vegetable garden goes straight down to the lake, which is two and a half kilometers wide. The view is such that it takes your breath away. After all, it’s a dark night in the city, but in the village it’s... bright. You should have seen this picture! I write mostly in the evening.
“It’s like they threw a woman’s soul into my male body”
— Is there anything in life that interests you as much as painting?
- Nothing, absolutely.
- And women?!
- I think they are in fourth place for me. My family knows this very well. I'm a fanatic. An inconvenient person to live with. I can experiment with color for twenty hours without a break. No days off or vacation. I won’t even cook for myself if I’m hungry. The maximum I can do is buy or order food. Everything else is a waste of time. I've never had a hobby in my life. Or rather, a hobby is a job. True, now we need to take a short break. Health problems have begun and my blood pressure is rising. Probably because I started working with enamel. Imagine being in a closed room all day, where there are a hundred open cans with paint. Plus turpentine.
—Aren’t you allergic to this?! You happy man!
— There are no allergies, but my blood pressure is up. The doctors looked at me and asked: “Do you work at a chemical plant?” I say: “And voluntarily.” I'm addicted to work. This is my happiness and misfortune. All my life it’s like I’m on a swing - sometimes at the top, sometimes at the bottom. But this is exactly what is incredibly interesting.
— They say that for your work “Horse. Night" at an auction in London, a real struggle broke out among collectors.
- I am not interested. I have not been to a single auction, even in Ukraine. I very rarely go to exhibitions. Not interested. Everything important to me happens in the workshop. What else do I need to know?
— For example, the fact that you are called the most expensive Ukrainian artist.
- So what?! I'm not a businessman. Money doesn't interest me. Since 1992 I have everything I want. And my requests are small. There is a saying: a rich person is not the one who has a lot of money, but the one who doesn’t need much...
- But, you see, money can bring a lot of pleasant moments. For example, buying things, cars...
— I have two cars. I mostly drive a jeep. I love sports cars, but they are not for our roads. One of my first cars was very noticeable in Kyiv - a red Volvo. She was then the only one in the city. The next two cars were also red. But the last one is gray. I found an image of my life - gray and white. Only the paints in my paintings can be colored. I neutralized everything else in my life... You know, in my youth I rode a motorcycle, wore a long haircut and tried to hide the fact that I was an artist.
- Why?!
- This is some kind of unmanly specialty. We are like perverts. Is it normal that I am more sensitive than a woman? In my male body like they threw me female soul. To be honest, I have never met a woman who felt the world more strongly than me. But you women are “receivers”. Only you can truly appreciate art, not the man next to you. Whoever he is...
Famous Ukrainian artist Anatoly Krivolap set a new world record for sales of Ukrainian art on the international market contemporary art.
Record at auction of contemporary art
On the auction contemporary art Phillips de Pury & Co painting “Horse. Night”, created by Anatoly Krivolap, was sold for a record amount for Ukrainian art - $124.4 thousand. This was almost three times the original cost of the painting.
Mystical landscape “Horse. Night” took sixth place at the Phillips de Pury & Co. auction. The work of the Ukrainian artist was sold along with works by recognized world masters of contemporary art, such as Wade Guyton, Anselm Reilly, George Condo.
"Horse. Night"
Even before the sale of this painting, Anatoly Krivolap was the most expensive Ukrainian artist. His painting “The Steppe” was sold at Phillips de Pury & Co in New York for $98.5 thousand.
Victory of Ukrainian art
Head and co-founder auction house Phillips de Pury & Co, art critic and curator Simon de Pury commented on the record sale of a work by a Ukrainian artist: “This sale is a real victory for Ukrainian art. We consider Anatoly Krivolap a very promising artist. Our auction house and in the future he will definitely work with Anatoly Krivolap and other Ukrainian artists.”
In addition to the work of Anatoly Krivolap, from the auction Phillips de Pury & Co. was sold famous picture Viktor Sidorenko from the “Levitation” project, who represented Ukraine in 2003 at the Venice Biennale. It was sold for $23.7 thousand.
A painting by the famous Odessa artist Igor Gusev “The Return of Elvis” from the Cosmo collection was sold for $16 thousand. And a photograph of Vitaly and Elena Vasilyev from the No Art project, created at the M17 Center for Contemporary Art, went under the hammer for $8 thousand.
A total of 171 works were sold at the Phillips de Pury & Co. toga, held in mid-October in New York. contemporary art, and the amount received from their sale was $5.7 million.
Anatoly Krivolap is the most sought-after artist in Ukraine
Anatoly Krivolap was born on September 11, 1946 in the city of Yagotin, Kyiv region. He is a graduate of the Kyiv State Art Institute. Famous artist V this moment is a leading member of the Picturesque Reserve group.
Anatoly Krivolap is the most sought-after Ukrainian artist, whose works have been great success sold at the most famous auctions in the world - Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury & Co.
An artist must be poor, hungry and lead a riotous lifestyle - all this is not about the painter Anatoly Krivolap. “There are simply artists in life. They have a pose, eye-catching clothes, a special facial expression. You look and see: this is an artist, but they are artists more than artists. And this is also cool, among them there may be good craftsmen, but this is a different style,” reflects one of the most sought-after and most expensive domestic contemporary painters.
Krivolap’s own style is denim shorts and a shirt, which is how he greets guests at his house in the village of Zasupoevka, not far from Yagotin. The 66-year-old artist has been living and working there for many years; he doesn’t go to Kyiv very often and only on special occasions.
Search for harmony
“How is my everyday life going? Everyday way,” jokes Krivolap. His day begins at nine in the morning, after tea or coffee - several hours of work. “If I’m not in the mood to go to the studio, then I get into the car and drive around the neighborhood, observing,” says the painter. He has a soft spot for sports cars, but on rural roads he prefers a massive SUV. Sometimes the car is replaced by a bicycle and a swim in Lake Supoy, on the shore of which Crookedpaw’s house stands. Then - a full-time working day, the artist can stand at the canvas for eight hours straight. In the evening - relax in a hammock, here Crookedpaw watches the sunset, how the clouds change color, and the rising of the moon. Then everything he sees is transferred to the canvas.
“When you start a picture, it pulls you in like a magnet. I worked, then rested for an hour, swam - and again went to the workshop, looked at it, corrected it. And so on all the time until you bring it to mind,” explains his creative method Crookedpaw. Sometimes the picture turns out even at the sketch stage, and it turns out even better than planned. And sometimes it takes years to return to the canvas. “To be specific, from two hours to thirteen years,” the artist clarifies. “This is working with conventional colors, which should convey lighting, space, and my personal state.”
An obligatory item in the artist’s working day schedule is an evening check of the work done during the day. “When it gets dark, I turn on the light and watch. If I don't like how a painting looks under artificial light, I redo it. In the morning I look again at what happened. In daylight and artificial light, colors are perceived differently, but harmony should always be maintained. After all, all museums work with artificial lighting, and we spend most of our time at home with it,” explains Krivolap. If harmony is not maintained, the painting will look dark, and the colors will not convey the mood, or “state,” as the artist calls it, that the author intended for the work.
Neither when Krivolap painted abstractions, nor before or after, was the artist interested in reviews of his work, positive or negative. “Once I decided on my own style, I was constantly rejected by someone,” he says. - Recently, at an exhibition, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk came up to me and said: “I really want your work, I like it, but I can’t, it exhausts me, takes away my strength.” And that’s normal, perception is always personal.”
With his corporate style- expressive landscapes painted bright colors on large-scale canvases, - Krivolap decided in the early 1990s. Before that, he managed to experiment with in different directions, among his works there are classical still lifes and nude portraits, then for a decade and a half the artist painted abstract paintings. “And when I felt that my hand was working, but everything inside was standing still, I realized that I was doing formal things, I felt uneasy,” the artist recalls. Over the decades of his artistic career, Krivolap had several serious creative crises, then he abandoned everything and alone rethought his work. To wait out the latest crisis, Krivolap bought a dacha. “At first I looked closely, then I began to write sketches,” says the artist. - I have always painted landscapes, but before they were a warm-up for abstraction. And then I saw the moon rising, noticed what color it was, how nature and its condition were changing. You will never feel this in the city.” Crookedpaw's fascination with landscapes continues to this day. Now he is thinking about how to transfer a rainbow to the canvas, and plans to paint more autumn landscapes, he is interested in their complex color and minimalism.
It is impossible to publish reproductions of Krivolap's works in a newspaper. Printing will not convey the play of color that has already captivated art fans around the world and made its author the best-selling Ukrainian artist. On May 29, at Sotheby’s auction in London, his landscape “Night” was sold for $83,700. The buyer was an Englishman, his name was not given.
And last year, for his “Moon over the River” and “Steppe” they paid 48 and 98 thousand dollars, respectively. And for the work "Horse. Night" - it is considered the artist's most mystical - in New York they did not spare 124 thousand dollars.
What is the secret of success? Art dealer Igor Abramovich believes that this is the soul that is hidden in Krivolap’s paintings.
- “The new Ukrainian landscape,” as Krivolap’s work has been dubbed, is mesmerizing! First of all, with bright, saturated colors, where even those listed in the “cold” densely Blue colour It feels incredibly warm. The author did not come to this style of writing right away, since he received a classical education in his youth. But I began to look for myself, worrying like everyone else creative people, stages of disappointment followed by ups. The quiet village of Zasupoevka in the Kyiv region, which since 2000 has become a source of inspiration for him, helped Krivolap survive one of the most difficult moments in his life. In his workshop in this village, Krivolap still conducts everything free time. He doesn’t go to social events and doesn’t communicate with the press. True, he made an exception for “KP”.
“I went through the most difficult period from 1976 to 1989,” the artist told us. - Years of searching and rethinking... After that, everything turned out relatively well. Auctions are good, but this year I became a laureate National Award them. Shevchenko. These last years became the most successful for me.
Anatoly Dmitrievich, blue, purple, bright dominate in your paintings Orange color. Why did you choose this particular range?
It's probably not me who chose the color. And the color chose me. But seriously, it's intuitive...
What does the name of the most expensive artist in Ukraine mean to you: recognition, fame, material well-being?
I think for everyone creative person the main thing is self-realization. Everything else is secondary.
What do you spend your sales money on?
Most of my paintings that are exhibited at auctions, including Ukrainian ones, were painted by me, but do not belong to me. So are the fees. (The artist hints that the paintings that were paid for large sums, were put up for auction not by him, but by a reseller. - Approx. ed.) The work of an artist is financially an expensive endeavor. Purchase of canvases, paints and payment for the workshop. Family... The sale of paintings is actually unstable and periodic.
Is there a painting you haven't created yet?
It is known that the artist experiences a “romance” with each painting. And when it ends, you always hope that the new one will be fuller and more interesting. Otherwise, further work simply would not make sense.
To the point
In May of this year, Sotheby's sold a painting by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch "The Scream" for $119.9 million. This is the most large sum ever paid for a work of art at auction.
By the way
TOP 5 most expensive artists in Ukraine
Alexander ROITBURD. In June 2009, at a London auction, his painting “Farewell, Caravaggio!” was sold for $97,000.
Vasily TsAGOLOV. In the summer of 2009 in London, his work from the “Office Love 2” series went into the hands of a Western collector for $53,600.
Oleg TISTOL. At the Phillips de Pury & Co auction, “Sea” Tistol from the “South Coast” project was bought for $28,750.
Alexander KLIMENKO. In the summer of 2011, his “India. Goa” became the most expensive Ukrainian lot at the Phillips de Pury & Co auction and was sold for $25,000.
Igor GUSEV. At the same auction, the painting "The Return of Elvis" from the Cosmo collection was sold for $16,000.
For comparison, in 2008, at the same London auction Phillips de Pury & Co, the painting “Beetle” Russian artist Ilya Kabakov was sold for $6 million.
Anatoly Dmitrievich Krivolap (Ukrainian Anatoliy Dmitrovich Krivolap; b. 1946) is a Ukrainian artist, master of non-figurative painting.
Born on September 11, 1946 in Yagotin. Anatoly’s first painting textbook was a faded pre-war book with drawing lessons, which he found in the library in Yagotin.
In 1976 he graduated from the Faculty of Painting of the Kazakh State Art Institute.
The first collector of Krivolap's works was the Polish collector Ryszard Wroblewski.
From 1992 to 1995, Anatoly Krivolap actively participated in the activities of the “Picturesque Reserve,” an art group known in the history of modern Ukrainian art. In the 2000s, he moved from Kyiv to the village of Zasupoevka near Yagotin, where he currently lives and works.
Anatoly Krivolap is considered the most “expensive” contemporary artist Ukraine - in October 2011, at the Phillips de Pury & Co auction in London, his work “Horse. Night" was sold for $124,343, and the painting "Horse. Evening” On June 28, 2013, it went under the hammer at the Contemporary Art Day Phillips auction for 122.5 thousand pounds sterling ($186,200).
On February 9, 2012, the list of winners of the Shevchenko Prize 2012 was announced. Anatoly Krivolap won in the category “ art"(for a cycle of 50 works "Ukrainian motive")
Anatoly Krivolap is an abstract artist who has gone through a difficult path from figurative painting through Fauvism to own style. Krivolap's creativity develops within the framework of the modernist tradition of perceiving the world through color. As a true modernist, Anatoly Krivolap sees himself at the forefront of Ukrainian art. And if the avant-garde artists of the beginning of the last century shocked a society accustomed to traditional figurative painting with their new expression of shining colors, then at the beginning of this century the struggle continues, but not with the ossified tradition, but with the new destructive trends of mass society and globalism.
