Putin was bequeathed the work of the artist whom Khrushchev yelled at in the Manege
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The collection bequeathed to the president includes works by Eli Belyutin, the founder of the New Reality association.
The story of an interesting gift to the president – the collection of Nina Moleva, which supposedly consists entirely of masterpieces of the Renaissance and not only – has one more facet. Among the works of antiquity, which Moleva attributed to the brushes of the most eminent masters of history, there are also paintings by her husband Eliya Belyutin. And he played an important role in the history of Russian art in the second half of the twentieth century. Eliy Belyutin founded the “New Reality” association, through which about 3,000 thousand artists passed through, many of them became famous. It was Belyutin who organized the exhibition of avant-garde artists in the Manege, which Nikita Khrushchev so vehemently scolded.
Eliy Belyutin studied with Aristarkh Lentulov, Lev Bruni and Pavel Kuznetsov. And in the 1950s, he rented one of the halls in the Teacher’s House on Bolshaya Kommunisticheskaya Street and began gathering students there. Not only did the studio members of the “New Reality” association study there, they also held exhibitions there. One of these vernissages, organized in 1962, attracted the attention of the foreign press. The exhibition was closed, but a couple of days later it, with a slightly changed composition, was moved to the Manege. Khrushchev came to the opening. What he said about those avant-garde works has been quoted. The destruction of the manege exhibition went down in history. Nikita Sergeevich shouted at Belyutin most of all. It must be said that many of the authors exhibited there later received recognition, such as Ernst Neizvestny. But what about Eliy Belutin himself? How valuable are his works? Obviously, most of his heritage is in the collection of his widow Nina Moleva, which means that, together with the collection of old art, they have now gone to the state.
“Eliy Belyutin himself was a myth-maker,” says Viktor Spengler, founder of the Repin Center for Artistic Expertise, to MK. – His collection of old art is not known among antiques. That is, only according to rumors, I have not seen her. But, probably, there are also works by Eli Belyutin himself. They have some value, but do not have museum circulation. Nobody collects Belyutin.
By the way, just a week ago, on February 6, a work by Eli Belyutin was exhibited at one of the Russian auctions. We are talking about a canvas measuring 127 by 66 cm, written in the style of abstract expressionism, called “Conversation.” The work was valued at 660 – 825 thousand rubles. However, there were no people willing to buy it. The lot is not sold. The sales history of the last two years is in the same spirit. Eli Belyutin’s works were exhibited at moderate prices for the art market, but were never sold under the hammer. But Belyutin, who passed away in 2012, also had relatively significant sales.
“The auction record for Belyutin’s work – almost $200,000 – was set at Sotheby’s in 2021,” says antique market expert Vladimir Bogdanov. – But there we were talking about a gigantic 4-meter painting from 1970. And in general, that case is absolutely exceptional. It cannot be taken as an illustrative example. Belyutin’s paintings are not uncommon at Russian auctions. And the prices are affordable for a wide range of collectors. Meter canvases can cost in the range of 400,000 – 1,000,000 rubles. More often around 500,000 rubles. The artist is not very counterfeit, but when buying you need to be vigilant and I advise you to require an examination from the seller.
Nevertheless, the figure of Eliya Belyutin, thanks to Khrushchev and his students, his courage to write abstractly and expressively when it was prohibited, has significance. So, perhaps, from the entire collection, the museum fund will include works by the collector himself – an artist with a scandalous history and a rich biography, Eli Belyutin.
Read also: “Putin won’t take it”: art critic Valery Dudakov – about Nina Moleva’s collection
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