Yuri Kuper Russian/British, b. 1940

Born 1940, Moscow, Russia; lives in France and New York City

Yuri Kuper's work is steeped in time, memory, and silence. Born in Russia in 1940, Kuper received thorough training in Beaux Arts drawing and painting at the Moscow Art Academy. After leaving Russia for Israel in 1972, he moved to London in the same year and later settled in France. Today, Kuper splits time between his country home in Normandy and a second studio in New York City.

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Kuper paints old objects-typically found covered in dust in the corners of pantries, attics, and flea markets or discarded on the streets-with a sense of reverence, calling the viewer to examine their aesthetic qualities and discern between his artistic interventions and the markings of time, nature, and use. Drawing from a limited collection of iconography, including spoons, saws, and paint brushes, he works with worn-out objects in various fashions, such as rendering them through painting and mixed media, attaching them directly onto a surface, or modifying the objects themselves.

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Yuri Kuper's work appears in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, and the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, among others. In 2020, his solo exhibition was on view at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, Italy.

Kuper’s 1995 exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is documented in the exhibition catalogue. Works shown include Saw on the Snow and Basement Window Through the Snow No. 2, both made in 1994.

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