YURI KUPER
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.
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.
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.
PAINTINGS
STILL LIFE WITH PAINT BRUSH IV Mixed Media on canvas 13" x 21 ½" 2002 signed
SILVER TUBE Mixed media on Canvas 8 ¾" x 11" 1999 signed
STILL LIFE WITH FUNNEL Mixed media on canvas 73" x 73" 1998 Signed
LIMITED EDITION WORKS
NEW YORK PORTFOLIO
NEW YORK PORTFOLIO #1 Photograph (printed lithographically) 41 ¼" x 29 ½" 1997 Edition of 25 unframed
NEW YORK PORTFOLIO #2 Photograph (printed lithographically) 29 ½" x 41 ¼" 1997 Edition of 25 unframed
OBJECTS
CHAIR I WITH APPLE/CHAIR II WITH APPLE (sold as pair) Mixed media 15" x 36" x 16" each 1998
SEAU AU ROBINET Mixed media on metal object 11" x 12" x 10" 1994
TABLE WITH APPLE Mixed media 33.5" x 21.5" x 19.5" 1997
SCULPTURE
MEMORIES OF TIN SOLDIERS Bronze 12" x 17" x 2 ½" 1980
EASEL Cast Bronze 84” x 20” x 21” 1989
LA BOITE Bronze 6" x 4 3/4" x 7 3/4" 1982
WORKS ON PAPER
SAW ON THE SNOW Gouache on paper 8.5" x 12.5" 1994 Signed
TREE FROM THE SNOW SERIES Mixed media on paper 9 1/2" x 7" 1990 Signed
NEW YORK PORTFOLIO #1 Mixed media on paper 1997 Signed