The Kedrin Dynasty Automatic translate

On March 6, 2025, the Belyaevo Gallery of the Moscow Exhibition Halls Association will open the Kedrin Dynasty Exhibition Project, which brings together the works of a large creative dynasty of artists: its founder Veniamin Kedrin, his son Alexander and his grandnephew Dmitry, as well as the poetic works of another representative of the famous family, the Soviet poet Dmitry Kedrin. The structure of the exposition clearly traces a line leading from the figurative and abstract works of the older representatives of the dynasty to the creative searches of the younger, who combines both directions.

Following the artist Veniamin Nikolaevich Kedrin (1899-1979), visitors to the exhibition will find themselves in Old Tashkent, in other cities of Uzbekistan, and will get acquainted with the life and portraits of the inhabitants of the Soviet East. In a separate section in the jubilee year of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, military propaganda posters made by various artists in the issues of "UzTAG Windows", which were initiated and headed by V. Kedrin in 1941, will be displayed. Here you can also read the poems of the poet and translator, Veniamin’s second cousin, Dmitry Borisovich Kedrin (1907-1945), famous, among other things, for his patriotic, war-front poems.

The famous St. Petersburg graphic artist Veniamin Kedrin was a graduate of the A.L. Stieglitz School of Drawing, and later lived in Uzbekistan for a long time. He managed to harmoniously combine the classical St. Petersburg school of drawing and national Eastern motifs in his work.

The different stages of the creative and life path of Alexander Veniaminovich Kedrin, who celebrates his 85th birthday this year, include the Eastern and "ceramic", underground and abstract periods. In the works of this painter and monumentalist (in the 1960s, A. Kedrin actively worked on the design of architectural structures in Central Asia), the ideas of Western art coexist harmoniously with deep immersion in the traditional culture of Asia. Expressive still lifes and landscapes, narrative compositions, portraits and bright abstractions - all this is present in his work.

The artist was born in Tashkent in 1940: many creative people left here, further to the East, in those years, trying to hide from militant socialist realism. In his childhood and youth, the future artist communicated with such masters as A. Volkov, N. Kashina, M. Kurzin… And his father advised his son to apply his understanding of color, form and rhythm in applied art. The artist has many connections with music and poetry. A. Kedrin mentioned more than once that when he paints, "poetry is constantly knocking at his head". "Since childhood, I have lived and worked in the format of poetry… My uncle, Dmitry Kedrin, has long become a textbook poet… My father was a student of Nikolai Gumilyov in his youth… Internal rhyme, rhythm, oxymoron, allusions are organically inherent in my painting."

This original master of the second half of the 20th – early 21st century considers non-objective painting to be the apogee of his creativity. In it, A. Kedrin sees an opportunity for the highest manifestation of creative freedom.

Dmitry Olegovich Kedrin was born in Moscow in 1962. He is the grandson of the poet D. B. Kedrin and the grandnephew of the artist V. N. Kedrin. In 1986 he graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute, specializing in graphic artist. He worked in the field of advertising, graphic design and illustration. The exhibition will feature both figurative and abstract works by Dmitry Kedrin. All of them have their own plastic connections and patterns. And, most importantly, there is a clear logical connection with the figurative works of Veniamin and the abstractions of Alexander Kedrin.

"My abstract works are, in essence, landscapes too. Space, air, plans, hidden corners and mysterious distances, hints and half-hints of reality… Abstraction is a fresh experience for me. However, I have been preparing for it for a couple of decades. The image of painting that I cultivate in figurative works is a demonstrative manual execution with angular awkwardness, accidents. And a deliberate lack of virtuosity. I continue to affirm this in abstraction, attracting newfound possibilities and energies."

Project partner: contemporary art gallery ARTSTORY (Moscow)