Lev Meshberg Art

Lev Meshberg’s paintings are autobiographical, filled with symbols and enigmas relating to his own existence. At the age of three, the artist began painting and was accepted to study drawing and painting at the Odessa Special Children’s Art School and graduated with a Gold Medal in 1950 at the age of seventeen. Over the next twelve years, Meshberg was twice awarded diplomas for the best paintings in the All-Soviet Union Art Exhibition. In 1967, after a Touring Exhibition of Soviet Art in Germany, Finland, and Hungary, he was named one of Russia’s six best painters. Meshberg also participated in more than forty one-man shows in all the major cities of the former Soviet Union. By 1972, Meshberg had achieved full artistic and professional recognition of his great talents. However, a series of paintings he had created the previous year after a visit to the Asian city of Bukhara were viewed with disfavor by officials of the Union of Soviet Artists. While garnering praise abroad, these paintings were judged to be “abstract” by Union officials and Meshberg found he had committed a crime of unorthodox artistic expression. In 1973, Meshberg emigrated to the United States and spent his first several years in the country enjoying the long awaited artistic freedom. Before long his work came to the notice of many important collectors and art connoisseurs. Through the efforts of such luminaries as Issac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Mihail Baryshnikov, a retrospective exhibit and reception in Washington, D.C. was held in 1979 - it sold out completely. Meshberg became the first foreign artist to ever show in the Capitol Building rotunda. Lev Meshberg is a figurative painter and a superb colorist. Meshberg's paintings are a combination of readily discernible objects and almost ethereal renderings of other objects with dream-like light and color. Recently he has worked still another dimension into his art, depth-a physical depth-achieved by build-up of pigments and other materials to add a sculptural dimension to his paintings. Meshberg’s works are not always definitive, with images hidden one inside the other. The artist challenges, “I want the viewer to meet me halfway.” The subtlety of color and true originality of composition and uniqueness of his three-dimensional method of painting brought Meshberg world-wide acclaim. The artist stands out as one of the pre-eminent still-life painters of this century. Thousands of collectors all over the world pay tribute to this modern master of nature-morte.