Alexei Stern. Creations. Painting. Graphics. Polychrome sculpture.

The exhibition introduces the oeuvre of the St Petersburg painter, graphic artist, sculptor, stage-manager and actor Alexei Stern. It comprises his paintings, works of graphic art, wooden and stone sculpture. Alexei Stern, son of a person subjected to repression, was born in Kazan in 1942. In 1959-61 he studied at the Kazan school of art. In 1962 Stern entered the workshop of dramatic art of the Kharkov Art Institute and graduated from it with a diploma of a theater designer. In 1971 he entered the Moscow Art Theater school-studio where he studied under Oleg Yefremov. Then for a couple of years he worked at the Moscow Art Theater and at the Nikolai Akimov Comedy Theater in St Petersburg. In 1979 Alexei Stern left the theater and accepted a teaching post at the Ilya Repin Institute of the Academy of Arts (the workshop of dramatic art). Meanwhile, he worked as a producer and theater artist, never combining these two jobs. Lately Alexei Stern devotes his time to painting only. His highly individual manner incorporates expressive poignancy and deep psychological penetration. The portraits of his contemporaries constitute the main bulk of his creative oeuvre: famous St Petersburg non-conformist artists Valery Lukka, Felix Volossenkov, Vladlen Gavrilchik as well as celebrated theater actors and producers. Following the traditions of classical Russian portraiture Alexei Stern constantly searches for new decorative solutions, techniques and materials. His new device is painterly portraits on wooden boards that he creates by means of a complicated system of multiple scanning of their representations. A catalogue for the exhibition has been published.