The seven artists, participating in “Kolomenskaya, 14” exhibition, differ in age, style, technique of their works and fate in art, but are united by the fact of finishing one school. This school, which prepared young people for entering St Petersburg art higher schools and was situated in a big apartment in Kolomenskaya street, 14. This school was named “Suvorov’s Studio” after a brilliant teacher of painting Vasily Ilyich Suvorov (1902-1991), who lead it till his death. The studio’s present leader, Valentina Borisovna Ivanova came to Suvorov’s Studio in 1961. In 1974 she graduated with distinction monumental painting faculty of Mukhinskoye College. From that year on she was a second teacher in the art studio, and in 1991 she headed it. It is considered in Russian modern art that St Petersburg school in general is characterized by greater conservatism, tending to artistic formalism and visualization, in difference to the school of the so-called “Moscow conceptualism”. There are two fundamental schools in St Petersburg, namely the Academy of Arts and Arts and Crafts Academy named after A.L.Schtiglitz. At the same time, many artists, who studied in “Repa”, “Mukha” or “Serovnik” joined the bohemian rows of independent art, which in the Soviet time was called “underground” or “non-conformism”. And when at the Academy or at Mukhinskoye College a student anyway belonged to some teacher’s studio, in the liberal bohemian surroundings the notion of “school” became a rarity. Absence of Schools, absence of Teachers is a typical feature (and problem?) of modern St Petersburg art. That’s why tracing “genealogy” of certain painters, groups, this or that sort of artistic work in St Petersburg is of great interest and help for cultural self-consciousness of “the oblivious generation”. Artists whose works are presented at our exhibition studied in Suvorov’s Studio at the end of 1980s – beginning of 1990s, in times of radical changes in life of the country and in art. The atmosphere in classes was Spartan, payment for studies was minimal and at times became almost symbolic. It was a friendly circle of people supporting each other even in everyday life. Ildar Chertyshov happened to cook a big casserole of beans for everybody, and someone who had no place to live slept on a camp bed in the studio. Painting was in the focus of studies: sculpture was thoroughly studied, but main activity was painting from live nature: portraits for beginners, nude figures for older ones. Painting became a mode of thought, major spiritual and intellectual work. There is internal depth and conscious work hiding behind external simplicity and even sternness of these images. What wide audience considers to be St Petersburg art is a thin layer on the surface of dark hidden depths, where it’s fed by both madmen and quiet, hardly noticeable art enthusiasts. There are many absolutely different artists in St Petersburg, and it’s hard to imagine that something might unite them. Nevertheless, these people came out of one and the same art studio some time ago, after they’d passed rigid and time-honored school of painting-reflection. Under conditions of fall and demoralization, when the academic artistic institution tried to survive in the epoch of changes, the canon was kept to the fullest extent. V.B.Ivanova’s school belongs to those seemingly discreet fenomena, on which the art temple of the great city is based like on foundation and bearing structure. Andrey Khlobystin
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