Ernst Neizvestny — sculptor with roots in the USSR
Ernst Neizvestny was a Russian-American sculptor born in Yekaterinburg (USSR) whose monumental, expressionist work brought him into direct confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev at the 1962 Moscow art exhibition. After emigrating in 1976, he created major works including the Tree of Life in Magadan — a memorial to Gulag victims.
Tracing the roots — Yekaterinburg
Born in Yekaterinburg in 1925 to Iosif Neizvestny, he fought in WWII (declared dead but survived), studied at the Surikov Art Institute, and then spent years in unofficial opposition to Soviet aesthetic doctrine. His defiance of Khrushchev to his face, and Khrushchev's later request that Neizvestny design his gravestone, is one of the most remarkable encounters in Soviet cultural history.
Yekaterinburg. At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.
A career defined by ambition
"Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it."