Centaur
Subtitle: the life and art of Ernst Neizvestny
By: Albert Leong.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Lanham
Language: eng
Number of pages: 353
Subjects: Neizvestnyĭ, Ėrnst, 1926-; Sculptors -- Russia (Federation) -- Biography.
Genres: Biography.
Description: "Preserving art, freedom, and human dignity in the age of the totalitarian state was one of the great challenges of the twentieth century. In Centaur, Slavic scholar Albert Leong chronicles the life and work of the greatest living Russian sculptor and philosopher of art, Ernst Neizvestny, who survived the Soviet police state to become a folk hero to his people.

Based on extensive research in the formerly closed Soviet archives and exclusive interviews with Neizvestny and his family and friends, Centaur tells the amazing story of a visionary artist and World War II commando officer who narrowly escaped death on the battlefield and successfully defied Stalin, Kruschev, Brezhnev, and the KGB to create acclaimed works of monumental art. Forced into exile in the West in 1976, Neizvestny returned in triumph to Russia in 1989 to design the first monuments to the countless victims of Stalinist political repression.

Supplemented by seventy-five photographs, Centaur will engross specialists and general readers interested in biography, cultural history, art, architecture, politics, and Russian/Soviet studies."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-336) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: List of Illustrations; title: Preface; title: Chronology; title: Introduction: The Odyssey of a Russian Artist; title: 1 Roots of a Russian Centaur; title: 2 The Formation of an Artist in the Soviet Union; title: 3 The Artist in War; title: 4 Riga; title: 5 Moscow; title: 6 The Challenger; title: 7 Art Intrigues; title: 8 Confrontation with Khrushchev; title: 9 The Years of Disfavor; title: 10 Ernst Neizvestny, Monumentalist; title: 11 Road to Emigration; title: 12 Exile; title: 13 Return to Russia; title: 14 The Gulag Triangle; title: 15 Mask of Mourning; title: 16 Shelter Found.