Felix Lembersky (1913–1970) was among the most influential and vocal artists to challenge the absolute sovereignty of Soviet Socialist Realism in the 1950s and to open up new and independent possibilities for artmaking in Russia. His powerfully direct and masterful work show his absorption of the radical tenets of the avant-garde, both in Russia and abroad, while remaining firmly fixed on the social purposes that were his primary motivation. His paintings and drawings show his steadily accelerating progress in breaking free of the constraints of conventional mimetic depiction and releasing the unique capacity of line, gesture, color, and form to synthesize inner and outer experience. He infused this innovative treatment into the politically favored and personally felt subject of the industrial class, which he described through individuals such as miners in the Urals and factory workers in Nizhny Tagil and through the landscapes and townscapes that provided the surroundings and resources that supported their lives. He steadfastly directed his grandiose ambitions for a boldly experimental art, and his fearless defense of its freedom, toward ethical concerns, holding that artists are “the spokesmen and the engineers of human souls.” This is a position whose urgency has currency now, a time when artists need to be reinvested with a comparable sense of power and responsibility. During this present period of shared economic and ecological difficulty on a global level, Felix Lembersky is a model of what visionary artists can contribute to the vitalization and humanization of an embattled community--humankind.

This sensitively designed and fully illustrated bilingual volume is the first comprehensive monograph on an artist esteemed in Russia but relatively unknown outside its borders. Art historian Alison Hilton offers a perceptive analysis of Lembersky’s career in the context of his peers, and his granddaughter and custodian of his legacy, architect Yelena Lembersky, gives a finely chiseled and deeply compelling account of his artistic life and preoccupations as he lived them. The book includes excerpts from primary documents and provides biographical and bibliographic data that make an invaluable introduction to scholars, students, and the general public.