Oleg Tselkov

Oleg Nikolayevich Tselkov  is a Russian nonconformist artist, celebrated for his images of faces painted in bright color, depicting inner psychological patterns of violence in contemporary culture.

In 1956 he had his first apartment exhibition in the Vladimir Slepyan (1930–1998) houseroom. In 1958 he graduated from the Saint Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy, where he studied under experimental scenic designer and theatre director Nikolay Akimov. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Tselkov studio in Moscow visited over the years such celebrities as, Arthur Miller, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Renato Guttuso, Lilya Brik, Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko (close friend of Tselkov), Louis Aragon, and Pablo Neruda.

The first Tselkov solo exhibition was opened in Kurchatov Institute in January 1966, but after two days the KGB broke the show as ideologically unacceptable. In 1977 Tselkov and his wife left the USSR and established themselves in Paris, where they have been living and working ever since. From 1980-1990 Tselkov enhanced the hues of his painting, enveloping the figures in a nebulous haze, and often expanding the canvases to the size of wall panels

Public Collections:

• State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow)
• State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow)
• State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg)
• Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow)
• Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
• Ulster Museum (Belfast, UK)
• Duke University Museum of Art, (Durham, North Carolina, USA)
• Yokohama Art Museum (Yokohama, Japan)
• Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA)
• Kolodzei Art Foundation, (Highland Park, New Jersey, USA)
• Yevgeny Nutovich Collection (Moscow)
• Valery Dudakov and Marina Kashuro Collection (Moscow)
• Bar-Gera Collection (Germany-Israel)
• Jean-Jacques Geron collection (Paris, France).