Male Head

myminifactory

Sergei Konenkov's life and career offer a distinctive viewpoint on art in the 20th century. As the most promising sculptor of his generation in Tsarist Russia, he was also a leading figure in the early Soviet art establishment of the 1920s. For over two decades, Konenkov resided in the West, becoming a well-known figure in New York's Greenwich Village art scene. He returned to the Soviet Union at Stalin's invitation, where he earned recognition as the prominent sculptor of his time. From experimental modernism to sentimental academism, Konenkov's intense personal vision became increasingly visionary throughout his career. During his student years, the sculptor absorbed a wide range of new sculptural impressions, which greatly influenced his art. He was awarded a trip to Italy and France, where he returned to Russia inspired by classical sculpture: a marble fragment can suggest a more expressive entity than an intact figure could ever convey. This head of an unidentified man is part of 1910s production in which the artist explored the creation of fragments as total art objects. Konenkov carved numerous heads that conveyed the impression of being all that remained of much larger pieces of sculpture.