Alina is an impressive example of the Moscow School of painting.
Gavrilov had constructed an elegant composition in which the horizontal stripes of blue and grey contrast with the diagonal lines of the drape on the wall. The visual focus is the seated model whose bright auburn hair is echoed by the filaments of the heaters which sit at the edge of the bed.
Gavrilov's spontaneous, confident brushstrokes almost shimmer on the canvas, as if echoing the way that the cold air of the studio has been heated and energised by the electrical heaters.
Geli Korzhev explained that the woman posing for Gavrilov was a popular model of the time called Alina. She sits on the bed, relaxed and still wearing her wristwatch as if to preclude her complete nakedness. From a compositional point of view, the present work seems to have been inspired by Matisse's series of nudes from the State Hermitage Museum which Gavrilov would certainly have been familiar with.
Oil on canvas
102cm x 177cm
Vladimir Gavrilov is one of the finest masters of the Moscow School, a group of artists who graduated from the Moscow Art Institute and launched their career in the second half of the 1950s. Among them are such well-known figures as G. Korzhev, A. Tkachev, V. Ivanov, V. Stozharov, and I. Popov. This was a tight circle of friends not officially united or under any common agenda. They were taught by the same teachers and were driven by the same desire to capture the beauty of everyday life and discover new artistic methods.