Nikolai Vechtomov

Artist Nikolai Vechtomov died on July 2, 2008, at the age of 84 after a lifetime of ordeals. A veteran of World War II, Vechtomov was a member of the non-conformist Lianozovo Group, the circle of artists who opposed the mandated socialist realism tradition in Soviet art. (Vechtomov, however, did not participate in the famous “bulldozer exhibition” of underground art in 1974, considering that works of art should be exhibited in museums and galleries and not in the open air).