Putin’s painting beats price for Malevich

By John Varoli | Web only
Published online 27 Jan 09

ST PETERSBURG. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s painting Pattern on a Frosty Window, the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in Russia at 37m roubles ($1.14 million), went on display at the Natalia Kournikova Gallery in Moscow on 25 January.

Ms Kournikova, an art dealer and collector, secured the work at a charity auction in St Petersburg earlier this month. “The painting shows another aspect of a great personality,” she said after the auction. She did not clarify whether she had bought the painting on behalf of a client.

The previous most expensive work, Spring, by 19th-century master Alexei Savrasov, sold for 24m roubles (at that time, just over $1m) in March 2008. The fourth and final version Kazimir Malevich’s iconic Black Square was bought for $1m in 2000 by billionaire Vladimir Potanin in a private sale.

Oleg Averyanov of Gelos, Moscow’s leading auction house, said: “Putin is probably the most popular person in Russia, and a painting made by his hand is a desired status symbol.”

In the past eight years Mr Putin has been heavily criticized for curtailing freedom and democracy in Russia, and for re-establishing one-party rule. The top-heavy Russian state has a centuries-old tradition of personality cults regarding leaders.