Russian-American master artist, Ilya Bolotowsky is one of the leading exponents of the neo-plasticism movement. Neoplasticism is the belief that art should not be the reproduction of real objects, but the expression of the absolutes of life. To the artists way of thinking, the only absolutes of life were vertical and horizontal lines and the primary colors. To this end neoplasticisist only used planar elements and the colors red, yellow, and blue.
“As a neo-plasticist, I strive after an ideal of harmony. …Neoplasticism can achieve unequaled tension, equilibrium, and harmony through the relationship of the vertical and horizontal elements.”
(Ilya Bolotowsky, March 15, 1969)
Bolotowsky’s work is in the collections of many major modern art museums around the world.
About The Artist:
Ilya Bolotowsky has been an American citizen since 1929. His educational training extends from Constantinople to the National Academy of Design in New York, and he has been a teacher and lecturer at over ten universities including Black Mountain College, N. C. (where Josef Albers also taught), Yale University, and New York University. In 1929 and 1930 he received both the Hallgarten Prize and the Tiffany Foundation Award, and in 1942 he was awarded the Museum of Non-Objective Painting Fellowship.
RÉSUMÉ:
Bolotowsky participated in many one-man exhibitions, executed several murals for the city of New York, and is represented in many public and private collections including: Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum, Museum of Non-Objective Painting, New York, and the Philadelphia Museum.
Statement:
“When so much art tortures the retina and concentrates on pathological elements, there is an even greater need for an art that searches for new ways to achieve absolute harmony and equilibrium, for an art that strives for the timelessness of the Platonic ideas.”
Additional Information:
Born: 1907
Birthplace: Petrograd, Russia
Died: 1981
