Past Imperfect. 318 Episodes From the Life of Russian Artist

As a soviet underground artist, Grisha Bruskin was propelled to prominence after the unprecedented success of his paintings at the Sotheby Moscow auction of 1988. Since then his work has been exhibited all over the world at the Guggenheim, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Jewish Museum in New York. Past Imperfect deftly captures the artist’s experiences as a Jew in Russia, the reality of life in an empire permeated by ideology, and the centrality of family. Saturated with insight and irony, each story offers a small vignette of Bruskin’s life. Photographs throughout the book create a distinct dialogue between word and image. Alice Nakhimovsky’s elegant translation conveys Bruskin’s sharp wit and strong style, superbly rendering Past Imperfect in English.