A new art fair in Moscow dedicated to works on paper has opened at the TON-Centre exhibition space. Called ‘Oberton’, it is the second project launched by the team behind Russia’s leading contemporary art fair Cosmoscow, which has celebrated its fifteenth anniversary this year. Margarita Pushkina, owner of both fairs, believes that the time has come for works on paper to share some of the limelight.

“We have been thinking about it for a long time. The new fair is a well-considered decision. The market is ripe for it,” Margarita Pushkina told Art Focus Now. “Cosmoscow has had a section of printed works on paper for many years, and it is very popular. We also had quite a few requests from both galleries and collectors for more specialized events. We thought it would be interesting to make a curatorial statement in the field of works on paper. It will undoubtedly further stimulate market growth.”

Although a similar fair, ‘Contour,’ has been held in Nizhny Novgorod for three years now, and Moscow has previously hosted numerous similar ‘paper’ projects, launching a new art fair dedicated to this field alone is a risky undertaking. Historically, major Russian collectors have had a difficult relationship with works on paper. Those who started collecting art in the 1990s were raised on images from Soviet school textbooks and the large canvases and guilded frames at the Hermitage Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery – exhibitions of works on paper were exceptionally rare during the Soviet times. Those collectors in new post-Soviet Russia preferred to see similar frames with paintings by Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900) or Ilya Repin (1844–1930) hanging around the walls of their living rooms. The collapse of the USSR, the opening of markets, and the accessibility of Western fairs and auctions allowed them to acquire Rubens and Renoirs, but their focus always remained the same.

Syntax Gallery owner Elvira Tarnogradskaya, from a family of antique dealers, recalls a popular saying about collecting drawings in the 1990s: “It is too modest for the rich, and too expensive for the poor. There’s no point in doing it.” However, the market changed, and so have opinions. Over time, Russian auctions began to be held on both sides of the Atlantic. Prices for works on paper also skyrocketed: not only in the field of the Russian avant-garde, which attracts Western collectors and museums, but also the Russian classics, which attracts 99% of Russian buyers. Even today, antique dealers are still hunting down drawings and proudly displaying their spoils: at this year’s November Antique Salon in Moscow a drawing by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin (1878–1939) fetched $90,000, while a trio of late sketches for a curtain design for an operatic production by Natalia Goncharova (1881–1962) fetched $125,000. But all of this applies to deceased museum artists; with living contemporaries, things are not so simple.

Tarnogradskaya believes that works on paper today reflect artistic practice in a different way. “It's often a diary-like genre, where artists can express their more intimate experiences. And it’s something where they can boldly experiment before deciding to realize an image in a larger format. I was once again convinced of this while sorting through the archives of the recently deceased Valery Chtak,” she says. Her gallery offers linocuts by this popular artist for $350–600 in editions of no more than 50. All of them are from the family archive; the entire run was sold out quite a while ago, so some of them are signed by the artist’s son.

Nevertheless, Tarnogradskaya, like many other gallerists, finds it difficult to name a single collector in Russia who is focused on acquiring prints. “There are some in the West, and some of them are happy to buy Russian artists from me. But in Russia, virtually no one limits themselves to a single medium,” notes Ekatherina Iragui, owner of the Iragui Gallery. Her Moscow gallery, and from this year her Parisian gallery, has been specializing in drawings for nearly fifteen years and has participated in numerous international fairs, including Drawing Now in Paris and NADA New York, showcasing works by Russian artists. Currently, she is exhibiting drawings by Guerlain Foundation's Contemporary Drawing Prize winner Olga Chernysheva (b. 1962) (priced between 4,000–8,000 Euros) and conceptualist Nikita Alexeev (1953–2021) (priced from 1,800 Euros) in Moscow. Alexeev, who died in 2021, is one of the hero artists in the various exhibitions at Oberton: his fantastic drawings and prints are also shown at the booth of Moscow’s XL Gallery and PiranesiLab, a print art laboratory and gallery. The latter is where many of the silkscreen prints, lithographs and engravings presented at Oberton were produced and they have inspired many collectors to start out, acting at times as a springboard or cradle of new collections.

In spite of the challenges, the fair was already busy during the first hours after opening, around lunchtime, and the first sales began. Oberton is fortunate in its location in a former circular train depot of the Leningradsky Station, built in the 19th century by Konstantin Ton, the designer of the Grand Kremlin Palace. This cylindrical building with its dome boasts a light and airy space with high ceilings comfortable for the twenty-nine galleries who are participating and the public. In anticipation of the upcoming festive season, the gallery owners seemed most focused on the classics and young yet already established Russian artists.

Artwin Gallery is showing abstract works on paper by Dima Rebus (b. 1988), whose recent exhibition at the gallery's London branch was a success (priced individually from $6,500), and works by Ustina Yakovleva (b. 1987) (priced from $1,300). Artzip is displaying surrealist drawings by Leonid Tishkov (b. 1953) (priced between $1,500–2,200). Set Projects is showcasing silkscreens by Aidan Salakhova (b. 1964) (an edition of 20, $1,300) and Alexandra Paperno (b. 1978) (an edition of 26, $1,200), while Sobo Gallery has on show hooligan style works on paper by Alexander Tsikarishvili (b. 1983), leader of the St. Petersburg art-group ‘Sever-7,’ ($3,200) and the fantasy works painted in wax on fabric by Yulia Mortiis (priced at $700). Anna Nova is selling work by Alexandra Gart (b. 1988), the former Cosmoscow 2024 Artist of the Year, and Evgeny Granilshchikov (b. 1985).

Following the first day of previews, E.K. ArtBureau, Pogodina Gallery, Iragui, and other dealers were reporting strong sales. And the fair's owner, Margarita Pushkina, announced future exhibitions of private collections of works on paper and the possibility of collaborations with antique dealers: “I am a passionate advocate for the organic connections between contemporary and classical art!”