Soviet non-conformist art has become more popular than ever before, with dedicated auctions in the West and Russia and new foundations and institutional collectors specialising in this art. Why is it so little appreciated in the West and is it time to take unconventional new approaches to how we understand and present the work of the non-conformists?

The term non-conformism was first used in England in the 17th century to describe those Christians who did not adhere by the dictates of the Church of England, and was later taken up by the Soviet art community in the 1960s to refer to art created outside the official Union of Art. It is a broad term that can define people who think and act outside a prevailing governing body or religion. Many of the world’s greatest artists – Caravaggio (c. 1571–1610), Francisco Goya (1746–1828), El Greco (1541–1614), Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) or Natalia Goncharova (1881–1962) – whose Evangelist works got her into trouble at the beginning of the last century – can be described as non-conformists.

Although in the context of Russian/Soviet art history, there are several other terms to describe this art like underground, unofficial, other art, outsider art, ‘the sixties’, and dissident art, I think the term non-conformism has been gaining more currency over the past decade, along with the rise of the market for this art in Russia- and here in Western Europe dedicated collectors now routinely ask me to find works by ‘the nonconformisti’. According to academic and art historian Alla Rosenfeld, formerly director of Russian Art at Zimmerli Art Museum, American collector Norton Dodge preferred the term non-conformist over unofficial art, because some artists were members of the official Artists' Union whilst also creating works in a modernist mode which did not conform to the dogmas of Socialist Realism. The term underground art with regards to countercultures also originates in the 1960s and 1970s in the West, in particular North America, a concurrent post-war phenomenon, so in some ways this is a less distinctive term than non-conformist when referring to these Soviet artists, it has other nuances.

Today with the rise in the market for late Soviet art, with higher prices and increased visibility, perhaps non-conformism will evolve into a brand? You can click on Sovkom to look for works for private sale and buy ‘Nonconformity’, since 2023 Vladey has been offering auctions of ‘Nonconformism’, and add to this auctions at Sotheby’s ‘The Non-Conformists Online’, and Bonhams as well as MacDougalls all of whom trumpet ‘non-conformist’ art. Gallerist Elena Kuprina tells me in Moscow that there are new, young collectors who are taking an interest in the art of the non-conformists, which augurs well for its future. But outside the domestic market non-conformist art is not a household name in Russia: Moscow gallerist Sergei Popov feels that there is still a huge gap in the public’s understanding of late 20th century art processes.

In the West, the reality is that outside exceptionally niche professional circles in my own experience many people even in the art world are still unfamiliar with non-conformism which defines what are over three decades of art production from the 1960s, if not before, until the early 1990s and beyond. This is a problem because in the international art world those Russian and Soviet artists who created their work outside the system are put into a kind of obscure box which is little understood and recognised, and thus, deemed of no particular value, reinforcing the sense among many international collectors that Russian art loses its compass after the Avant-garde.

I would argue that this term should be represented in all popular, academic and mainstream international art historical lexicons, for example, a quick search on Tate’s website revealed that ‘non-conformist’ did not show up as an art term among 461 definitions including numerous mainstream and peripheral art movements and art groups. On MoMA’s website there are 342 art terms and again there ‘non-conformist’ is absent. On the website of the Pompidou Centre there are just seven entries under non-conformisme/art non-conformiste, despite the large ‘Kollektsia!’ donation of around 250 works in 2016. A least the term does exist and perhaps the fact that there are numerous synonyms for Soviet non-conformist art in itself creates confusion.

London based art collector Irina Stolyarova who has been acquiring works by the non-conformists for over two decades and has published a catalogue of her collection agrees that people outside Russia are not familiar with non-conformist art, “You need to explain a lot to them”, although she adds that once you do, they are normally impressed. If it has been written out of general histories of late 20th century art, a lack of institutional shows in the West is clearly an issue, as is the lack of integration of non-conformist art in contemporary art auctions – gallerist Igor Markin says you can count the number of international collectors who buy non-conformist art on your fingers, a situation he does not see changing any time soon.

Yet looking at the bigger picture, outside Soviet Russia, non-conformism is an enduring quality in art production which does not fall in and out of fashion like other trends. Should non-conformism not be a badge of honour and a term which the art world ought to hold in greater esteem, perhaps use with more frequency, with both specificity and with some notion that art can be valued because it does not conform in a world which is blind and it stands outside our corrosive, ephemeral, self-serving power structures? Although many otherwise educated people remain unaware of the inherent value of Soviet non-conformist art, in Russia from the mid 1950s onwards there was an irrepressible creative force against many odds, where artists overcame obstacles and flourished.

How is it that this borrowed, foreign word originating from 17th century England, came to define a whole era of late 20thcentury art from the ex-Soviet Union? According to an account by artist, photographer and chronicler George Kiesewalter (b. 1955), this term was first used to describe Russian-Soviet underground artists by George Sherman, an American journalist and later diplomat who was living in London and working for the Observer during the Khrushchev years when he travelled to Moscow, Leningrad and Kyiv and wrote about his experiences including his encounters with the Soviet underground art world in an article ‘The Forbidden Fruits of Art’ (1960). Connections with the West go further than just etymology, as many of these artists emigrated to North America or Europe, and continued working and exhibiting there, particularly Oleg Tselkov (1934–2021) and Oscar Rabin (1928–2018) who are in many ways poster children for non-conformism, the former a rebel, the latter’s dark paintings a kind of unswerving resistance to a governing autocracy which told artists how to paint using a few sanctioned, large scale technicolour narratives.

Today in the West, I think we need to balance two tasks: firstly take these Soviet/Russian artists out of a little understood pigeonhole by learning better a few basic stories and facts about late Soviet non-conformism, to understand the contours of a movement, writing it into art history, and then secondly perhaps appreciating its deeper qualities and relevancy across the world today when all of us can feel the crushing limits of self-expression in public life. Although perhaps we do not want to be reminded of times and places in history which have been excessively repressive, wisdom tells us that we must not be defined by the conditions around us rather by our ability to rise above them. Art also needs to be treated with this humane brush as we art historians, specialists and curators write stories about it.