Perhaps encouraged by the prospect of renewed peace talks, London’s auction houses are once again daring to dip their toes into the dark, choppy waters of the Russian art market. Sotheby’s is presenting a sale of Imperial and Soviet art, including Fabergé; MacDougall’s follows with an online auction, From Icons to Non-Conformists; and Christie’s, in December, will offer the Winter Fabergé Egg. While international collectors continue to favour modern and contemporary art, Russian buyers remain more drawn to traditional, Imperial and academic works than to contemporary masters – a preference that still defines the market’s core currency.

A huge red banner emblazoned with the words ‘Onward to the Victory of Communism!’ hung high above the bank of phones in Sotheby’s auction room in London where there was the first sale of Russian art since 2022 in all but name. ‘Fabergé, Imperial & Revolutionary Art’ may not be a title that everyone will agree on because sadly politics divide us more than ever, but heated late night debates around the kitchen table aside, it did not matter – the collectors turned out, online, on the phone and in the room, as well as casually clustered around tables with white tablecloths in the straight-laced Bond Street café, there was a buzz and camaraderie pushing old rivalries aside. For many art collectors across this field, it has not been the right time think about buying art but others are carrying on, art trading is a way of life.

Unsurprisingly the Russian art market is an outlier when compared with most of the rest of the world. Where on the international art market well over a decade ago interest in contemporary and modern art already far outstripped the Old Masters, and 19th Century art dropped almost entirely from favour (an exception was the ‘Salvator Mundi’ which curiously was offered as the trophy lot in a contemporary art sale at Christies), for Russian diaspora collectors, those who have settled abroad, it is Imperial Russian art which is the golden standard, and prices are rising. Artist Ivan Aivazovsky is the standard, there were several paintings in this auction topped by a monumental trophy work ‘The Survivors’, with Aivazovsky’s trademark transparent turquoise waves, it broke all previous records to become the most expensive painting by the artist sold on the auction market ever, hammering down at over $5million in a battle between someone on the phone and a collector sitting in the room.

Tastes for Aivazovsky have changed over time, with new hierarchies of desire appearing where once perhaps collectors fell in love with his monumental, picturesque cityscapes of noble ports, like Constantinople or the Bay of Naples, nowadays they just seem to want a boat in the sea, and storms and survivors are a bonus.

The market for Russian non-conformist art, like for Aivazovsky, has been sailing into brighter seas over the past few years. Yet that is where the similarities end. The Russian non-conformist market behaves a bit like a coy teenager, with a burst of activity then crippled in a corner, only to then resurface again. It may today be one of the most attractive areas of the Russian art market for people thinking of investing in art and yet offers often little reassurance for collectors in the here and now, trying to understand when something is expensive or good value.

Prices for works by the same artist can vary greatly among the non-conformists, and Oscar Rabin (1928-2018) is a great case in point. For paintings which were created in the pre-perestroika era which are the most collectible today, prices can range from Euros 20,000 to Euros 100,000+ even for works of an equivalent size, but what is it that marks one Rabin out as being more valuable than another? Even for Rabin´s gloomy aesthetic some are perhaps too dark, the subject might be a bit obscure, or empty, just less successfully resolved, but even among those that we can consider strong works, there are often big differences. Two paintings by Oscar Rabin in Sotheby’s auction perfectly illustrate this conundrum. Both of a similar size, his 1988 ´Moulin Rouge´, an uncharacteristically dynamic and vibrant if unsettling painting sold for approximately Euros 72,000 whereas the more quintessential ´Rue du Pôle-Nord´ painted several years earlier sold for less than half that, despite being valued slightly higher prior to the sale. Reassuringly there seemed to be depth to the market for Oscar Rabin with MacDougalls offering no less than six paintings by him all of which sold for around Euros 25,000, although no price spikes there.

Elsewhere at Sotheby´s, fresh to the market, a group of paintings by Oleg Tselkov (1934-2021) and Leonid Purygin (1951-1995) came to sale from a private North American collector, with exceptionally enticing estimates, hard for collectors to resist. All of them sold, yet here the final prices they fetched seemed subdued, a reminder that despite headline results there are still opportunities for investors on this market.

Undoubtely the hero of the moment among the non-conformists in the London sales was Russia´s hyperrealist painter Semen Faibisovich (b. 1949) by whom there were three major works up for sale, all of which had also been offered previously at Sotheby´s in December 2021 and here were all three coming up for auction again, no doubt some backstory behind it. It was a second chance for other collectors to acquire what are unquestionably rare, coveted Soviet-era large scale paintings by this important Moscow artist. All three had also previously been on sale during the market boom nearly two decades ago, the most expensive of the trio, Faibisovich´s monumental and upbeat ´Beauty, from the Cycle Workers´ Festive March’ painted in 1988 hammering down in Sotheby´s auction far below its 2008 result, suggesting to me that it was a very good pick for a discerning buyer.

The teenager allusion of the non-conformist market is perhaps a good one as markets do have lifespans. For centuries there has been a strong market for works by Aivazovsky, and for every half decent work by Aivazovsky offered on the market there is a queue of potential collectors keeping the market buoyant and frothy, perhaps even too much so these days. The market for non-conformist art is far less mature, and there are currently not enough buyers outside Russia. By all accounts this market is blossoming on the domestic market in Moscow, but abroad, whether in the West, or countries like Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan all of whom have growing local art scenes and collectors who like non-conformist art, it lacks some robustness and consistency. Where often prices today in all areas of the market for Russian art outstrip those at the top of the market boom in 2007-2008, there are scattered casualties and anomalies among the non-conformists, like the examples of Faibisovich above.

That being said, unquestionably prices for the non-conformist artists are often reaching levels now not seen since the 2007 bubble and with uncertainty swirling around canny collectors who are not afraid to buy the best works on offer today, even if paying a price over the last market boom, will end up assembling an important collection and may even make a good investment, a double win. There may not have been a victory to Communism (as if to prove the point, Komar and Melamid´s museum 1970s banner remained one of the few works unsold in the auction) and capitalism itself lies in questionable ruins today, but the real survivors in this story are not punching the air in a boat. They are the brave non-conformist artists, whose paintings once were unsaleable, now gracing the walls of new private museums and important collections. For Sotheby´s, with twenty percent of the paintings auction dedicated to Non-conformist art, of which all but two works sold and fetched a total of $1.5 Million, it is serious business.