Lecturer: James Butterwick

The Soviet Avant Garden (incl. Chagall & Kandinsky) blazed a trail through Art History which too soon was stunted with the advent of Socialist Realism. James Butterwick is one of the world's leading dealers, expert in the field of Ukranian and Russian Art. He tells us what occurred when a flood of newly-discovered works appeared after the fall of Berlin Wall. 98% were found to be fake!

The Russian Avant Garde movement contained some of the greatest names of its generation. Malevich, Chagall, Kandinsky, Exter, Popova, Rozanova, Rodchenko, Tatlin and countless others blazed a trail through Art History for an all-too brief period. With their creativity stunted by the advent of Socialist Realism in 1932, their work disappeared – only to re-emerge in the early 1970’s when Greek collector, George Costakis began to buy up swathes of paintings of the period. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a flood of newly-discovered works appeared on the Western and domestic markets of which the vast majority, up to 95%, had neither verifiable provenance nor exhibition history, their authenticity supported only by documents from now discredited Russian and Western art historians and erroneous certificates of chemical expertise.
This scandal reached a crescendo in January 2018 with an exhibition of 24 dubious works of the period at the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium. James Butterwick examines the background behind the mass faking of the Russian Avant Garde, the history of these dubious paintings, universally rejected by museums and the art market, as well as the methods used to ‘create’ authenticity.

James Butterwick
James is an acknowledged expert and collector of Russian Art. He began collecting and dealing in Russian Art in 1985. In 1994 he moved to Moscow becoming the only foreign member of the Russian Society of Private Collectors. He then starting forming collections, taking part in Museum exhibitions and lecturing in Russian Art. James’ gallery, in Brook Street in London, acts as a source of museum quality paintings of both the Russian and European school. He has travelled regularly to Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In 2015 James’s gallery became the first gallery dealing in early 20th century Russian Art to be invited to exhibit at TEFAF (The European Fine Art Foundation) in Maastricht. James speaks fluent Russian.