The last of the Order of the Mendicants – Newspaper Kommersant No. 187 (7388) of 10/10/2022

At the age of 93, after a long illness, the remarkable artist Valentin Gromov died in St. Petersburg. He turned out to be the last of the “Arefyev circle” of “mendicant painters”, who lived to a ripe old age and another break of epochs in his lifetime.

Arefyevtsy are, first of all, five names. Charismatic, violent “provocateur for painting” Alexander Arefiev. Strict and concise Richard Wasmi. Uneven, nervous Vladimir Shagin. The most, perhaps, plastically gifted, withdrawn, who lived in absolute poverty Sholom Schwartz. Valentin Gromov was one of them, albeit a little more socialized than others (he served as a decorator in the theater, graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute in absentia, got a job and worked for a long time in a printing house as a proofreader for printing), but he was also fundamentally lifeless: for a very long time he did not sell his works, for all more than the 90-year life received less than the fingers on one hand, solo exhibitions, was in love with painting rather than with life as such. And in addition, he turned out to be the most faithful and consistent storyteller about his, alas, already departed friends.

By and large, if we go from the knightly symbols adopted by the company of the most perfect youngsters who were expelled from the most prestigious Secondary Art School at the Academy of Arts (SHSH) for modernism and invented the “Order of Mendicants (the second option is not for sale) painters”, then death has always been with them nearby. Which, in fact, turned out to be almost true – the first to die of bone tuberculosis in 1961 was their closest friend, the poet Roald Mandelstam, who wrote poetry in the same way as they painted pictures: “My friends are the heroes of myths / Tramps / Drunkards / And thieves.” The second, in 1978, to get away from cirrhosis of the liver and boredom, the most violent of them, “Arekh”, Arefiev, who dumped him in Paris. Schwartz (he will leave in 1995), Shagin and Vasmi (in 1998) managed to live up to the relative, local significance of fame.

Gromov had to live without them for another quarter of a century, during which dozens of catalogs, monographs and articles were written about their company.

And now, as a result of all these texts and exhibitions, it became absolutely clear that the five obstinate boys, who managed to write and breathe infinitely freely in the very beginning of the 50s, even before the death of the mustachioed tyrant, became the starting point for several generations of Leningrad-St. Petersburg artists , the centers of the “Leningrad school of painting”, which was seriously talked about only ten years ago.

Valentin Gromov has always been, as it were, “one of”. He himself maintained this “we” in his memoirs. “We” began with painting: “We had such a turning point, in the third year of the art school, then the third floor was opened in the Hermitage. Impressionists. And we were constantly in the Hermitage. We went to the library of the Academy of Arts, took albums there, but did not know about the Impressionists, we were fond of the old masters. I took Velasquez’s albums, Arech – Goya’s albums. And so we saw first the Barbizons, Corot, and then the Impressionists – Claude Monet, Renoir, Degas. It was a turning point… All the same, as the eyes opened. This is how you look and draw. We started painting like this. We were kicked out.”

“We” continued with him until the very end. Although the most attentive researchers, collectors, and museum workers knew perfectly well the difference between the Arefievites and managed to give Gromov his due.

In his youth, having experienced the strong influence of the incredibly charismatic Arefiev, in maturity he turned into a master of theatrical scenes, an amazing landscape painter, the most elegant collage artist from the formulas of other artists, times and eras. And, of course, a very strong graphic artist, who treated this type of fine art with reverence for a true artisan.

One of the exhibitions of the “Arefiev circle” was called “The Dissolute Righteous”. The first part of this definition was about Arefiev and Shagin. But the second one is about Gromov first of all. He lived, as befits a righteous man, for a long time and happily enough. Happily, because he worked almost to the end, because he found those who listened to him and understood him, because he managed to tell about those whom he loved. And let the world love them too.

Kira Dolinina