Daria Khristova nee Chernenko
Department Director
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Lot 22*
Vladimir Nikolaevich Nemukhin(Russian, 1925-2016)Composition avec cartes/ Composition with cards
3 – 24 October 2025, 12:00 CEST
Online, Paris, avenue HocheSold for €4,480 inc. premium
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Anna Tchoudnowsky
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Vladimir Nikolaevich Nemukhin (Russian, 1925-2016)
Composition avec cartes/ Composition with cards
signée en cyrillique et datée « 85 » (en bas au centre)
acrylique et crayon sur papier
79 x 69cm (31 1/8 x 27 3/16in).
signed in Cyrillic and dated '85' (lower centre)
acrylic and pencil on paper
signée en cyrillique et datée « 85 » (en bas au centre)
acrylique et crayon sur papier
79 x 69cm (31 1/8 x 27 3/16in).
signed in Cyrillic and dated '85' (lower centre)
acrylic and pencil on paper
Footnotes
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
A follower of the first wave of avant-garde exploration, Vladimir Nemukhin did not choose playing cards as the foundation of his work by mere chance. The fascination with cards as symbols of stepping beyond the limits of ordinary consciousness first emerged in the 1910s. The avant-garde group Jack of Diamonds and later Target (1913), led by Mikhail Larionov, were among the most open to experimentation. In this context, Nemukhin, through the motif of playing cards, proclaims himself both as a successor to the early 20th-century avant-gardists and as an artist who managed to transcend the boundaries of Socialist Realism.
As Nemukhin himself noted:
The title was perceived by my contemporaries as a bold intellectual provocation. The transposition of traditional card symbolism into the realm of artistic play gave it an entirely new meaning.
By incorporating cards and games of chance into his compositions - placing jacks and jokers at the centre of his visual narrative - Nemukhin draws on symbolism, skilfully using the opportunity to operate across various painterly and conceptual planes.