Against the Rules

Nikolay Pakhomov. Paintings.

07.11.2008 — 16.12.2008

Preview — 06.11.2008

He never lived according to the rules. Began drawing age three when his auntie gave him a box of paints. After a komsomol meeting where he was scolded for ruining a newspaper on display he decided to quit drawing completely. He had accidentally spilled a paint jar onto it.
He entered the Aviation College and then worked as an engineer. But when in 1962 the Ufa College of Arts was opened, he became one of the first students. He studied first in theevenings combining it with his work during the day, and later he studied bothday and evening courses, still working at nights.
He couldn’t see himself without his art any more. He studied in the class of a great teacher Aleksander Erastovich Tulkin, a founder of the Bashkirian Art School. After Tulkin’s death Nikolay helped to establish a museum of his teacher’s work and life, of which he was director.
In Nikolay Pakhomov’s studio we discovered an amazing collection of works from his entire life. Fragments from a life outside of the officially acknowledged Soviet reality, his paintings were not permitted to be exhibited by Soviet exhibition comitees and were rarely shown in general. All Bashkirian artists were good friends, but no one dared to organise Pakhomov’s personal exhibition.
You will be the first to see the complete collection of works by Nikolay Pakhomov in Moscow including the works, which never gained approval for public exhibition. This exhibition shows well the limitations imposed during the Soviet time and, above all, the great talent of an artist who spent his life uncompromisingly painting whatever he wished, without restraint.

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