Friday, August 18, 2006

Nicolas Kalmakoff
" In 1955, a Russian émigré died alone, unknown and in poverty at the hôpital de Lagny to the north of Paris. After leading a hermit's existence in his small room at the hotel de la Rochefoucault in Paris, this former Russian aristocrat had created a fascinating body of work which, deemed eccentric and worthless, was locked away in storage and forgotten.

Throughout his solitary life, the artist had painted works that reflected his various obsessions with martyrdom, asceticism, decadence, spirituality and sexuality. Executed in a style marked by the Russian art nouveau, his imagery nevertheless transcended this movement, bearing undeniable traces of demented vision, indeed, genius.

Only in 1962 did some of his works come to light when Bertrand Collin du Bocage and Georges Martin du Nord discovered forty canvases in the Marché aux Puces, a large flea market to the north of Paris. All the works in this unusual collection were signed with a stylized 'K' monogram.

The Hungarian merchant who sold the lot to them included with it a poster of an exhibition held in Galerie Le Roy, Brussels, in 1924. Here, for the first time, the full name of the mysterious 'K' was revealed - Nicolas Kalmakoff."

Quote taken from here.

I really liked this drawing of war that shows a cannon designed like a lurching spider beast with dozens of small cannon ball creatures waiting to be shot into the air. This drawing of Satan is one of the most horrifying pictures I've discovered all year. The bizarre bear like ears on the sludge like demons, the vacant glowing eyes, absolutely horrifying.

No comments: