"There must be no intermediary between the viewer and the painting. The painting has to hypnotize, in the same way that the surface of the contemplated object hypnotized the painter."
Yuri Kuper

Yuri Kuper (1940)

A prominent artist, sculptor, graphic and set designer, Yuri Kuper was born in Moscow, in 1972 moved to London, then settled in Paris and Normandy, worked for years in New York. Now the artist spends most of his time in Russia, busy as never before, being involved in painting, architectural, film and theatre design projects and book illustrations.

His latest book illustrations of "Mozart and Salieri" and "Book of Job" are among the finest examples of contemporary livre d’artiste.

In his works Kuper applies paint and collage to worn, faced surfaces of old blackboards, rusty metal sheets, weathered wooden boards, or torn, corrugated paper. He often incorporated an actual object mounted in the center of the composition.

The plain objects with which he makes some work – a spoon, a palette, a table or a box – are not intended to carry a charge of shock, but are used with skill and a certain reverence, like the bottles and bowls in Chardin or Morandi. Like Jasper Johns, he works through a muted rainbow: dusty autumnal colors in greys, browns and greens.

Unquestionably his favorite contemporary artist is Anselm Kiefer, whom he admires for his technique, philosophy, deep scientific knowledge as all these features are the inevitable components of Yuri Kuper´s art.

The artist has had over 50 one-man exhibitions at the world’s most prestigious galleries in France, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Japan, USA and Russia.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:

• Bank of America, USA
• Fonds nationale d’art contemporain, France
• Ministere de la culture, Paris, France
• The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• Massachusetts School of Art, USA
• Boston Fine Art Museum, USA
• New York Museum of Modern Art, USA
• National Gallery, Oslo, Norway
• Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia
• Kiyoharu-Shirakaba Museum, Kanto, Japan
• Staatliche Museen, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany
• Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
• University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
• University of East Anglia (The Sainsbury Collection), Norwich, England
• Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, Japan
• Yoshii-Kiyoharu Foundation, Tokyo, Japan

The artists lives and works in Paris, New York and Moscow.