This splendid book paints a rich portrait of the Russian avant-garde and the intrigues which it saved for posterity. Roberts has written a fascinating history of the famous Costakis collection and its creator George Costakis who, for nearly thirty years, was an administrative clerk in the Canadian embassy in Moscow. Until his forced departure from Russia in 1978 he collected, continually and painstakingly, the abstract, constructivist and supremacist art of 1912 to 1930 which fell into official disrepute under Stalin. The author, a former Canadian ambassador to Moscow, is a first-hand authority on Costakis and his magnificent obsession.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Born in Moscow of Greek parents, George Costakis (1912-1990) began collecting paintings of the condemned Russian avant-garde in the mid-1930s. He and his Russian wife Zinaida crammed their apartment with works by Chagall, Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Liubov Popova and others, at great personal risk to themselves. Costakis's holdings, which today form the core of the Tretyakov Collection in Moscow, were instrumental in making the Russian avant-garde known to the West. In this delightful biographical study enlivened by 30 b & w photos and color reproductions, Roberts, former Canadian ambassador to the U.S.S.R. (1983-1985), extensively reproduces Costakis's own recollections from taped interviews made in 1987. Roberts refutes the theory, popular in the West, that Costakis was protected by the KGB; he shows that the KGB waged a campaign of personal terror in the 1970s against the art collector. We also learn of his mother's and brother's imprisonment in Stalin's gulag, and of his friendships with Chagall, Vladimir Tatlin and Aleksandr Rodchenko.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The core of what is undoubtedly the most important collection of modern Russian art began life obscurely, hanging in the small apartment of a Russian administrator on the Moscow staff of the Canadian embassy. Denounced and derided, suppressed and destroyed by the Soviet government, this important body of work was only glimpsed by the West in the works of those who had fled the Soviet Union's intellectual oppression. The author, a Canadian diplomat who has been a friend of Costakis for many years, augments his moving transcription of Costakis's words with his own insights and memories, detailing the devotion and determination of one man to collect and preserve the avant-garde art of his country. Now that the constructivist and abstract art of 1912-30 can be exhibited in Russia and abroad, its importance has become as clear to the world as it was to Costakis. An important view of a period of enormous interest to social historians as well as art historians; highly recommended.
Paula Frosch, Metropol-itan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Paula Frosch, Metropol-itan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worth reading for Russian avant-garde art history,
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This review is from: George Costakis: A Russian Life in Art (Hardcover)
This is a very interesting book about the collector of one of the world's largest collections of Russian and Soviet avant-garde art. George Costakis, ethnically a Greek but culturally a Russian, as the title suggests, worked in the Canadian embassy during the mid-20th century and also collected Malevich, Rozanova, Filonov, Popova, Rodchenko, and Kandinsky during a time when the art was completely devalued and seen as worthless. The most interesting part of the book deals with Costakis' collecting, which can be seen as saving the art. For example, some paintings had been used as building material for dachas or for children's treehouses when Costakis rescued them.
The author of the book, however, isn't a professional writer, and it shows. Parts of the book are awkward and don't really go together. He did conduct extensive interviews with Costakis, some of which are interesting for Soviet history more broadly, as are Costakis' drawing of a gulag camp at Kotlas. Overall, however, if you have an interest in Russian and Soviet avant-garde art, this is definitely a book worth having.
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