Petr Ossovsky

“The Land and its People” – this is how, in his own words, Pyotr Ossovsky (1925 – 2015) described the essence of his art. For more than half of the artist’s life, that “Land” for him was the ancient Pskov region, to which Ossovsky, conquered by its profound beauty and epic grandeur, devoted several cycles in his art since the early 1960s.

The painting Fishermen of the Pskov Lake (oil on canvas, 150×180 cm) from the collection of the Art Russe Foundation, which adorns one of the labels of Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, Art Russe Collection 2018, was painted by the artist in 1989-1990. Ossovsky recalled: “… Initially, the fishermen were very apprehensive of me. I had to drink vodka with the Pskov fishermen for three years before they finally embraced me and started posing for me. “

This work by Pyotr Ossovsky is, without exaggeration, a classic example of the austere style, of which the artist is considered a remarkable representative. Both compositionally and in terms of the subject, The Fishermen of the Pskov Lake could well have been created during the heyday of socialist realism and would have become a jubilant, solemn ‘ceremonial portrait’ (quite possibly successful) of a workers’ collective – one of those paintings that were churned out by well remunerated art centres to decorate the interiors of Soviet institutions. But times changed and brought with them artists with a new vision … The characters in Ossovsky’s canvas do not look like vanquishers of the Waters; calm and self-confident, they are merely doing their job. And while the work undoubtedly resembles a classic portrait, the artist managed to get away from reportage detail and create an austere and poetic image of “the Land and its People.”