Painter Robert Falk's Triumphant Return to Moscow
The huge retrospective at the Tretyakov is a revelation.
"Bay of Balaklava," 1927
State Tretykov Gallery
The exhibition of painter Robert Falk (1886-1958) in the New Tretyakov Gallery begins with a comment about the leader of the U.S.S.R. “Nikita Khrushchev was not prepared for this kind of painting,” it reads.
The painting in question was “Nude in an Armchair.” In 1962 the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev, called it “perverted.” It was being shown at an exhibition dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Moscow Union of Artists. “For the present this kind of creativity is considered indecent,” said Khrushchev, whose taste leaned more to red banners and official portraits.