Victor Popkov

A young man in a half-open window. The black eye orbits on a broad face; a caged bird; the grid of the window and, completely aside, against the background of a sash opened towards the bluish snowdrift, a stand with pencils. A self-portrait of artist Victor Popkov (1932-1974). He is a little over thirty; his Bratsk Builders has already been acquired by the State Tretyakov Gallery, he is member of the USSR Lenin Prize and State Prize Award Committee, participant in the 31st Venice Biennale, as well as exhibitions in Japan and Yugoslavia. He is talented and sought after, but there is not a single trace of reflection of the life of a successful Soviet artist in Reflection by the Window.

The art of Popkov is complex, profound and intense. He is interested in human life, its deepest moral meanings, its fragility and loneliness. There are no template solutions in his emotive work; his characters are always in sync with the surrounding world and society. Never featured in official catalogues of the artist, this self-portrait dates back to 1963. Eleven more prolific and vibrant years lie ahead for Popkov, with portraits of artists and lovers, landscapes and genre sketches, the famous Mezen cycle and Father’s Overcoat… He will be killed in 1974, at the age of 42 – absurdly, tragically. But in his works of outstanding mastery and sincerity he will leave behind an incredible artistic chronicle of the years between the Thaw and Stagnation, seen through a prism of his hopes and philosophical reflections.