Photo Flash: Nahum Tschacbasov Retrospective Opens at National Arts Club

Southampton art dealer Arthur T. Kalaher presented a fascinating survey of the works of Russian-born painter and poet, Nahum Tschacbasov at the National Arts Club covering his work from the 1930s until his death in 1984. This is the first important survey of his works in almost three decades. The exhibition which runs until June 16 is presented in conjunction with the 11th Annual Russian Heritage month sponsored by the Russian American Foundation in cooperation with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Post. Scroll down for photos from the opening and examples of Tschacbasov's artwork!

A major figure on New York's art scene in the 1930s through the 1950s, Tschacbasov's works are in the collections of such prominent museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Hirshorn at the Smithsonian in Washington. Many of the works which have long been held by his step-son Leonard Barton, owner of Bravura Art ,have never been shown publicly. Barton assisted Kalaher in assembling the works for this very special exhibition.

Nahum Tschacbasov was born in Baku, in the southeast of Russia. When he was eight years old, he came toAmerica, where his family settled in Chicago. His career, spanning more than five decades from the 1930s to the 1980s, is a kaleidoscope of influences, from modernism to the Byzantine style and expressionism of his Russian roots. Tschacbasov's paintings of the 1930s reflect the social and political preoccupations of the times. He received considerable critical attention for his powerful dramatic satirical depiction of social injustice.

In the 1940s he gained wider recognition when his style evolved into a fusion of Cubism and Surrealism. Through the influence of Jung, as well as currents brought to America by the newly arrived group of European Surrealists, he created a powerful personal iconography in which the inner workings of the psyche are revealed as myth and metaphor.

The multiplicity of images that emerge at this time: stars, moons, birds, boats, are at once personal and universal. Every painting is a landscape. There are horizon lines and tiny celestial bodies. The painter has presented man within his universe.

Tschacbasov's paintings from the late 1950s until his death are the freshest and most exciting part of his long career. His work becomes not only unique but also prescient, out of step with the surrounding art world, visually more exciting and thematically both more immediate and more charged. He believed that the role of the artist was to bring together the spiritual forces of the past, and his paintings document this goal.

Tschacbasov is that truly rare find an overlooked dynamo worthy of a closer examination and another decade of exhibitions.

A number of his East End fans turned out for the opening including Southampton's Christopher Arnold, RomeArnold, Edward Callaghan, John Wegorzewski, Elyn and Jeffrey Kronemeyer.

Photo Credit: John Wegorzewski