Arefiev, Alexander
Alexander Arefiev was born in Leningrad, USSR (now Saint-Petersburg, Russia) in 1931. His talent was noticed from the early age and he was taught by Solomon Levin (1907-1990) at the House of Artistic Education of Children till 1941 when he was taken out of town by his mother during the Leningrad blockade. Upon their return to the city in 1944 Alexander was enrolled into the Leningrad Secondary Art School, a part of the USSR Academy of Arts where his fellow pupils were Ilya Glazunov (1930-2017) and Mikhail Wojciechowski (1931-2015).
Alexander learnt about the art of ancient China and Greece, Renaissance and the French art of the 19th century where his favourite was Honoré Daumier (1808-1879). Together with a few of his fellow students, Arefiev joined the Order of Mendicant Painters, an art group formed at the end of the 1940s. One of its members was George Traugot (1903-1961) who influenced the aesthetic views of young Alexander. The members of the group were following traditions of Leningrad school of painting of 1920-1930s with its emphasis on colour and simplicity of forms. Most of the younger artists of the group joined the so-called “Arefiev circle” at the end of the 1960s.
In the 1950s Arefiev made numerous paintings and drawings of contemporary Leningrad life. He entered the Leningrad Sanitary and Hygienic Medical Institute but developed a drug addiction and spent three years in prison for forging prescriptions from 1956 to 1959. Alexander continued his career as an artist and joined Leningrad City Committee of Artists in 1966. He had two personal shows at the end of the 1960s.
In 1970 Arefiev took part in the famous group exhibition at the studio of Vladimir Ovchinnikov (1941-2015) and participated in the first exhibition of non-conformist art at the Gaza House of Culture in 1974 and the second one at the Nevsky House of Culture in 1975 becoming one of the leaders of Leningrad Avant-guard in the 1970s. Alexander was invited to join the Experimental Exhibition Partnership founded by Youri Jarkikh (or Jarki) ( born 1938) and Evgeny Rukhin (1943-1976) in 1975 and showed his works with the group at the number of exhibitions in Leningrad and Moscow until his emigration to Austria and then France in 1977.
The works of Alexander Arefiev influenced future generations of Leningrad and Saint-Petersburg artists and are present at the State Russian Museum and Non-Conformist Museum of St Petersburg, Russia, Zimmerly Art Museum, USA and many important private collections in Russia, France and the USA.
