Oleg Vassiliev, Illumination, 1989, oil on canvas. The Non-Conformist artists of the Soviet Union are returning to the limelight once again even if, as Nancy Dodge once stated, their art form “had been consigned to obscurity.” Here, we take a closer look at four artists whose work was ahead of its time and stood the test of time. Thanks to focused and forward-looking collectors such as the Dodges, the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey is now the world’s premiere location to see Soviet Non-Conformist art with, as of 2017, the largest collection on public view. Yet the artists continued to subvert and protest the Soviet Union with their art form, receiving little critical acclaim until decades later. Artists who dared create work outside of these official circles - especially in the 1960s - took a huge risk many were gambling with their livelihoods, if not lives. The Non-Conformists were, by and large, artists that had been ostracized by government officials and banned from government-sanctioned professional circles. The Non-Conformist movement (1950-1991) is marked by innovation, individuality, and silos of deep originality after all, many of its artists were working in solitude. The collection includes work of a diverse cross section of media - from painting to video - by more than 1,000 artists who changed the course of Russian modernism in the late 20th century, until 1991, when the Soviet Union met its downfall. The Dodge collection of Soviet Non-Conformist art is as focused and rare as the work it features. Fascinatingly, the couple focused their private collection to a single time period and style in art history: Soviet Non-Conformist art. The Dodges' gift is the second of such bequests the Zimmerli Art Museum accepted 4,000 similar works from the Dodge family in 1991. This prized collection was bequeathed to the Zimmerli Art Museum by Nancy Dodge, widow of Norton Dodge, an economist, art collector, and academic who was well known for groundbreaking research on the Soviet economic system. The gift included a trove of 17,300 works, with an estimated value over $30 million. The Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University recently received the largest donation in the museum’s history.
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