Paris – Rebel Spirits: Non-conformist art from Important Collections will be held online on bonhams.com from 18 April – 7May 2025. The 84-lot sale features important works from 'the second Russian avant-garde', including a significant private collection of works by the sculptor, painter and graphic artist, Ernst Iosipovich Neizvestny (1925-2016), coming weeks after what would have been the artist's 100th birthday.

Daria Khristova, Head of Sale, commented: "By its very nature, 'unofficial' Soviet art from this period has often been overlooked, and so we are very pleased to dedicate this sale to significant works produced during the 1960s-1980s, coming from various collections. Diverse in character, the artists represented in this sale emerge as an essential part of the movement praised as 'the Second Russian Avant-Garde'."

Highlight lots from an Italian private collection of 21 works by Neizvestny include Sans titre/Untitled, a bronze sculpture with marble base, 1973, estimate of €2,000-4,000. The collection comes to auction at asignificant time in the public appreciation of the artist, as 9th April 2025 marked what would have been Neizvestny's100th birthday, and is remembered as one of the most important masters of the Soviet era. Concealed for decades from public view within the artists' studios, and shown only at private 'apartment' viewings, Soviet underground art encompasses a variety of diverse artistic movements united by the underlying pursuit of freedom of expression, set against the political and social context of the Soviet era.

The sale will feature works by the most celebrated 'non-conformist' artists, including; master of the 'metaphysical' still-life Dmitry Krasnopevtsev (1925-1995); member of the 'Lianozovo circle' Vladimir Nemukhin (1925-2016); the conceptualist Vladimir Yankilevsky (1938-2018); the pioneering abstract painter Edvard Steinberg; Oscar Rabin (1928-2018), Natalia Nesterova (1944-2022), Mikhail Roginsky (1931-2004), Boris Sveshnikov (1927-1998) and others.

Additional highlights of the sale include:

• Dmitry Krasnopevtsev (1925-1995) Sans titre / Untitled, oil on Masonite. Estimate: €30,000-40,000. Krasnopevtsev is one of the most talented metaphysical painters of the Soviet Union. His artistic vision aligns with renowned Italian artists like Giorgio Morandi and Giorgio de Chirico, who pioneered the metaphysical painting movement.

• Oscar Yakovlevich Rabin (1928-2018) Сhâteau à la fin de l'automne. Estimate: €18,000-20,000.

• Erik Bulatov (born 1933) Femme au fer à repasser/ Woman with iron. Estimate: €5,000-7,000.

• Evgeny Rukhin (1943-1976) La serrure/ The Lock. Estimate: €5,000-7,000.

• Mikhail Roginsky (1931-2004) Blazer rose/ Pink blazer. Estimate: €5,000-6,000.

• A collection of five works by Anatoly Zverev (1931-1986), including Homard/Lobster, estimate: €3,500-5,000, and Portrait féminin/ Female portrait, estimate: €3,500-5,000. 15 April 2025

(Press Release)