Oscar Rabin died

In Florence, at the 91st year of his life, a Russian and French artist, the main organizer of the Bulldozer Exhibition, 1974 Oscar Rabin, died. This was reported by TASS with reference to the representative of the artist, collector and philanthropist Mark Ivasilievich.

The artist died on the eve of the opening of the exhibition at the Russian Academy in Florence, to which he came to the Italian city.

Rabin was born on January 2, 1928 in Moscow in a family of doctors. He studied at the art studio of Evgeny Kropyvnitsky, who became his first mentor, then in 1946-1948 - at the Riga Academy of Arts. In 1948, Rabin entered the second year of the Moscow State Center. Surikova, but next year he was expelled "for formalism."

The artist was one of the most noticeable representatives of the post -war Soviet avant -garde. In the late 1950s, along with Kropyvnitsky and his daughter Valentina, which Rabin married, he founded the unofficial art group "Lianozovo".

Rabin was the main organizer of the exhibition of non-conformist artists , opened on September 15, 1974 in Bitsevsky Park in Moscow. She was dispersed by police officers using bulldozers and irrigation machines.

In 1977, the artist was detained on charges of parasitism, after which he was forced to emigrate from the USSR. Rabin left for France, next year he was deprived of Soviet citizenship. Since then, he lived in Paris.

The artist was returned to Soviet citizenship in 1990 by Decree of the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev. In 2006, he received a Russian passport.

In 2007 and 2010, Rabin signed two open letters in defense of the organizers of the Forbidden Art -2006 exhibition in the Sakharov Center - Director of the Center of Yuri Samodurov and curator of the exhibition Andrei Erofeev, convicted of the “extremist” article of the Criminal Code on charges of “exciting religious enmity”.

In 2013, Rabin received the Order of the Russian Academy of Arts "For Serving Art."