Petr Dick

Петр Гергардович Дик (1939--2002) Pyotr Dik was born in the Altai, studied at the Stroganov Art College in Moscow, and then settled in the town of Vladimir. Quite deserved but somewhat paradoxical success came to him only in the 1990s when his solo exhibitions took place in the Tretyakov Art Gallery and the Russian Museum in Russia and also in London, in Italy and Germany. He preferred to conduct his dialogue with the world through his favorite medium -- dry pastels on emery or velour paper. He intentionally never used any fixatives to avoid spoiling the natural velvety texture of the pastels. In Dik's hands the possibilities of this technique were extended manifold while his pastel brush stroke was veritably transformed. Dik's spatial constructions ignore illusory depths and the key role in the visual effect is given to color. While color played an insignificant role in his earlier works it gradually reached very high intensity and expressiveness towards the late 1990s, thus demonstrating the psychologically justified evolution of his perception of the world. His large color patches and surfaces minimally interact with each other and in this way the artist wanted to express the very essence of color raising it to almost symbolic status. Ancient icon painters had a similar approach to color and in the beneficial atmosphere of the Vladimir and Suzdal church paintings Pyotr Dik studied and organically assimilated their experience. People's Artist of the Russian Federation Illarion Golitsin about Petr Dick: "His laconic works attracted many connoisseurs of genuine art. I liked his kindness. Smart, well aligned, and concise — these works drew attention to themselves. It was hard to just walk by — they captivated you, and maybe even taught you. Taught you to part with the excessive and the unnecessary... He was witty, tender, he was in love with his characters, event though they were often reduced to a combination of one or two spots, almost abstract... "