Ernst Neizvestny was born in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) into the family of doctor Iosif Moiseevich Neizvestny and poet Bella Abramovna Dizhura. In his childhood and youth, he had to hide his origins because his father was a White Guard officer, and his grandfather, Moisey Neizvestnov, was once a wealthy merchant.

Ernst Neizvestny with his family, from left to right: father Iosif Neizvestny, sister Lyudmila, Ernst Neizvestny, mother Bella Dizhura

“My father’s generation, and I in my youth, lived in constant lies. Even within the family, we tried to hide our origins. It turns out our surname was not Neizvestny but Neizvestnov. My father changed the last two letters, being a wise man, and as I understand now, those two letters basically saved us.”

The short Jewish boy with outstanding creative abilities had to learn to survive among his peers. Erik Neizvestny (he later changed his name to Ernst) spent his childhood in the very center of Sverdlovsk — a world of contrasts: a cozy house on Chernyshevsky Street, where (oh, miracle!) there was a live corner with axolotls, and beyond the fence — a harsh street where the law of the strongest prevailed.

On the street, Erik fought a lot, fought with passion. Even at the end of his life, after serious surgeries that nearly left him blind, he proudly admitted on camera: “I still remember fights with pleasure. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m not bloodthirsty, but I really want to punch a nasty mug.” In this interview, the camera seems to be pointed very disadvantageously at the ninety-year-old Neizvestny from above, which should emphasize his old age and frailty. But in fact, no: when the sculptor recalls childhood fights, his eyes shine not at all like an old man’s, and there is no feeling that he speaks to the viewer from below upwards. This skill comes from childhood. Even if you are the smallest among your peers, it doesn’t mean they can look down on you. No one ever has the right to look down on you.

At home, everything was different. The family was amazing and talented. The father was a respected otorhinolaryngologist doctor in Sverdlovsk, Iosif Neizvestny, a former White officer. Most likely, his profession saved him and his family many times — doctors are always precious, especially pediatricians. Outwardly, Dr. Neizvestny did not look like a proletarian at all: he wore a suit, a tie, and always ate with a fork and knife. And his mother was an incredible woman. Bella Dizhura was a poet and biologist. She graduated from the chemical-biological faculty of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. She was a student of the academician Vernadsky himself (the actual founder of an entire science — biogeochemistry). Life connected Bella not only with a genius of science but also with a genius of poetry: one chapter of her student memories is modestly titled “My friend Kolya Zabolotsky.”

Such amazing parents raised Erik. It would seem the boy should have been fascinated by biology or medicine (he liked his mother’s experiments with animals and sometimes even assisted her at home), but his passion became art. A special kind of art that, strangely enough, was largely shaped by childhood fights.

As a schoolboy, Neizvestny participated in All-Union children’s creativity contests. In 1939, he entered the Leningrad Art School at the Academy of Arts. The school was evacuated to Samarkand, and from there the young sculptor, despite poor health, volunteered for the army.

During battles, he was seriously wounded — comrades even thought he had died. But in the basement where bodies were stored before burial, Neizvestny regained consciousness: the wound was not fatal. However, Ernst Neizvestny was mistakenly awarded the Order of the Patriotic War II degree posthumously. After the injury, he moved with difficulty on crutches and could not sculpt for more than a year. For some time after the war, he taught drafting at a military school in Sverdlovsk.

In 1946, Ernst Neizvestny entered the Academy of Arts in Riga, and a year later — immediately the Moscow Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov and the philosophy faculty of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov. Neizvestny’s student works already became museum exhibits during his studies. In his third year, he made the sculpture “Yakov Sverdlov Introduces Lenin and Stalin” and the bas-relief “Yakov Sverdlov Calls Ural Workers to Armed Uprising” for the Sverdlovsk Museum. His diploma work — the sculpture “Builder of the Kremlin Fyodor Kon” — was purchased by the Russian Museum.

Already at this time, the first problems with censors appeared: experimental and unofficial works had to be hidden. “Disagreements with socialist realism at the institute arose primarily among front-line soldiers. Many of these young people were even communists, but their experiences, their life experience did not correspond to the smooth writing of socialist realism. We did not theoretically but existentially fall out of the accepted norm; we needed other means of expression. I was destined to be one of the first, but far from the only one.”

The sculptor was criticized by newspapers, summoned for talks “in offices,” and even beaten on the street. However, fellow artists supported him, and in 1955 Neizvestny became a member of the Moscow branch of the Union of Artists.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Neizvestny created the cycles “War Is” and “Robots and Half-Robots,” sculptural compositions “Atomic Explosion,” “Effort,” and other statues, graphic and painting works. In 1957, Ernst Neizvestny participated in the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow and won all three medals. He was forced to refuse the gold medal for the sculpture “Earth.”

In 1962, an exhibition dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Moscow branch of the Union of Artists was held at the Manege. Alongside experienced socialist realists, young avant-gardists from Eli Belyutin’s studio “New Reality” presented their works, including Ernst Neizvestny. On December 1, the exhibition was visited by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev. The head of state was not ready to appreciate the new art. He was angry: he scolded both the exhibits and their authors. He called Ernst Neizvestny’s works “degenerate art.” Ernst Neizvestny had to defend both his works and those of his young colleagues.

“The conversation was long, but basically it boiled down to this: I tried to prove to him that he was provoked and that he looked ridiculous because he was not a professional, not a critic, and even aesthetically illiterate. He insisted otherwise. What arguments did he have? He said: ‘I was a miner — I didn’t understand, I was a political worker — I didn’t understand, I was this — I didn’t understand. Well, now I am the head of the party and premier and still don’t understand? For whom are you working?’”

He failed to convince Khrushchev. The thaw in Soviet art ended with the 1962 exhibition. Neizvestny was expelled from the Union of Artists. While Khrushchev ruled the country, Ernst Neizvestny did not receive a single state commission.

But after the former general secretary’s death, his family turned to Neizvestny with a request to create the tombstone.

The idea of the monument was born almost immediately. It became a composition of blocks of white and black marble — embodying the ambiguous personality of the ruler.

The new government was more benevolent. In the 1960s, Ernst Neizvestny was allowed to execute a large project — the 150-meter bas-relief “Monument to the Friendship of the Children of the World” in the children’s camp “Artek” in Crimea. Pieces of mountain rocks brought by children of the international shift were laid at the base of the sculpture.

In 1971, the sculptor won the competition for the best monument project at the Aswan Dam in Egypt. At that time, Neizvestny’s monument “Lotus Flower” became the largest in the world. Its height is 87 meters, taller than the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin.

“When the international competition for the monument above the Aswan Dam was announced, I sent my project through various channels so that no one would know it was mine. The envelopes were opened. Soviet representatives fell like skittles: an undesirable person took first place. But there was nothing to be done since the world press printed my name. It also appeared in ‘Pravda.’ Our architects rushed into this gap and quietly gave me a lot of orders.”

In 1974, Neizvestny prepared wall decor for the library of the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology. The authorities allocated little money; detractors hoped the sculptor would refuse. But Neizvestny saved money: he did not hand over his sketch to the factory, as many sculptors did, but made the bas-relief with his own hands. And again, a record was set: the area of the bas-relief “The Formation of Homo Sapiens” was 970 square meters. At that time, it became the largest bas-relief created indoors in the country.

Neizvestny’s last project on Soviet territory was a bas-relief on the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Ashgabat.

In 1976, Neizvestny left the Soviet Union. His wife, ceramic artist Dina Mukhina, and daughter Olga did not go with him. “In the USSR, I could make large official things, use my formal techniques, but I could not do what I wanted. I reminded myself of an actor who dreamed all his life of playing Hamlet but was never given the role, and only when he grew old and wanted to play King Lear was offered Hamlet’s role. Formally, it was a victory, but internally — a defeat.”

Abroad, he was already known — before emigrating, the sculptor held personal exhibitions in Europe. He did not want to emigrate. But he was not given work in the USSR and was not allowed to work in the West. From the early 1960s until his departure, the sculptor created more than 850 sculptures. Neizvestny spent almost all the money he earned working as a stonemason or restoring and repairing bas-reliefs of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior, located in the Donskoy Monastery. Of his 850 sculptures, only 4 were purchased! Criminal cases were opened against him; he was accused of currency fraud and espionage. Moreover, strange people constantly met him on the street and beat him. Then he decided to leave Russia altogether — on March 10, 1976, the sculptor left his homeland. When Neizvestny arrived in Europe, Chancellor Kreisky issued him an Austrian passport, and the government gave him one of the best studios in the country. But the sculptor moved from Austria to Switzerland to Paul Sahar (Schönenberg), one of the richest people in the world. He bought a barracks in Basel for Neizvestny’s new studio. His wife Maya Sahar, also a sculptor, adored Ernst. She gave him her studio with all the tools and the entire library.

“To these people,” Neizvestny said, “Picasso and Henry Moore came to pay homage. Meeting Paul Sahar was like meeting God. And the gatekeeper who opened the door to paradise was Slava Rostropovich. Slava Rostropovich even wrote a book ‘Thank you, Paul’ — about how Paul brought many of today’s greats into the world. And so I found myself before the face of the career lord God. But I took off and left for my own reasons. I could not stand living in a rich man’s house… In 1976, I came to America, and literally the next day my work — a bust of Shostakovich — was unveiled at the Kennedy Center. There were big articles and TV programs. Alex Lieberman and Andy Warhol took me under their wing. I was very friendly with Warhol. He coined the phrase ‘Khrushchev is a mediocre politician of the era of Ernst Neizvestny.’”

A wonderful friend, Slava Rostropovich, who had gained a huge network of social connections over many years, generously passed them all to me. Presidents, kings, leading critics, artists, politicians. Getting involved in this social life, I soon realized it was not for me. You come to a party, you are handed twenty business cards, you have to respond. Communication grows exponentially. The lonely profession of a sculptor cannot withstand such loads. I burned the business cards. I stopped communicating. Socially, this pushed me to the very bottom.”

But Neizvestny achieved that celebrities introduced to him by Rostropovich began to come to his studio as to a sculptor. To get to Neizvestny’s home from Manhattan took two to three hours. First across all of Long Island, then by ferry. After ten minutes of sailing, the shore of the neat, well-kept Shelter Island appears, where the artist owned a plot of one hectare and half a lake.

The house was built according to Neizvestny’s own design. Attached to it is a studio, a tall cylindrical hall with a gallery.

Neizvestny taught in Hamburg, at Harvard, Columbia University, and New York University — art, anatomy, philosophy, synthesis of arts. He could have become a permanent professor but did not want to. He really liked teaching but was hindered by routine paperwork. And also reports, meetings… All this took too much precious time. The sculptor preferred to work a lot in the studio. In the States, he underwent two heart surgeries. Once he even experienced clinical death. He was saved again by a Russian doctor — Sasha Shakhnovich.

Neizvestny lived less than a year in Zurich, then moved to New York. There he was elected to the New York Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 1986, he became a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and then the European Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Humanities. In the USA, Neizvestny lectured on culture and philosophy at Columbia, Oregon universities, and the University of California at Berkeley. He was acquainted with representatives of the American elite — Andy Warhol, Henry Kissinger, Arthur Miller.

In the early years of emigration, Neizvestny sculpted the head of Dmitri Shostakovich for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. Several times his exhibitions were held at the Magna Gallery in San Francisco. At the request of this exhibition center, Neizvestny created the cycle “Man through the Wall.” His works were also exhibited in Sweden: in 1987, a museum of Neizvestny’s sculptures opened in Vättersberg. Several crucifixes designed by Neizvestny were purchased for the Vatican Museum by Pope John Paul II.

Neizvestny not only taught and created sculptures but also worked on graphic works. In 1989, he prepared illustrations for the anniversary edition of Samuel Beckett, as well as for the works of Dante and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Since the early 1990s, Ernst Neizvestny often visited Russia. In 1994, the sculptor created the sketch of the country’s main television award — “TEFI.” The statuette represents a character from ancient Greek mythology — Orpheus playing the strings of his soul. A year later, the first post-Soviet monument by Neizvestny — “Golden Child” — was installed near the Sea Terminal in Odessa, Ukraine. In 1996, a monument “Exodus and Return,” dedicated to the deportation of the Kalmyk people to Siberia, was unveiled in Elista. At the same time, the memorial “Mask of Sorrow” was opened in memory of victims of political repression in Magadan. Later, a monument “Memory to the Miners of Kuzbass” appeared in Kemerovo.

In 2004, the “Tree of Life” — Neizvestny’s main sculpture, on which he worked for more than 40 years — was installed in the lobby of the pedestrian bridge “Bagration” in Moscow.

“My main work is a huge monument that I conditionally call the ‘Tree of Life.’ And one night, literally immediately, I saw the ‘Tree of Life’ in a dream. I woke up with a ready solution. The overall form, the shape of the tree crown, and the shape of the heart were decided. Thus, I kind of saw at night a super-task that reconciled me with my real fate and gave me, even if only fictitiously, a model that allowed me to work into nowhere but for a single goal.”

Above the “Tree” in “Bagration,” a glass dome was erected — also according to Neizvestny’s sketch. In the structure of the “Tree of Life,” one can see Möbius loops, faces of historical figures, and religious symbols.

In 2007, the sculptor completed his last monumental work — a bronze figure of Sergei Diaghilev. It was installed in the impresario’s ancestral home in Perm.

In his last years, Neizvestny was seriously ill, almost blind, and did not work, but from time to time he sketched his ideas on drawing paper using a special optical device.

According to Neizvestny’s widow Anna Graham, when Ernst died, their joint bank account had $3,500. Graham claimed she had to sell her parents’ apartment and a portrait of her mother by Vladimir Weisberg and use the $300,000 proceeds to arrange Neizvestny’s funeral. Neizvestny’s nephew Andrey Rylov claimed that Graham sold Neizvestny’s works for personal gain and to maintain her luxurious lifestyle.

After Neizvestny’s death, about 100 of his works remained in his studio, country house, and the park near the country house in the USA. These works became the subject of a court dispute between the heirs — Neizvestny’s widow and his daughter Olga. Olga’s representative in court was Neizvestny’s nephew Andrey Rylov.

Ernst Neizvestny left no valid will. The original will was destroyed by fire, according to his widow Anna Graham, in 1998. However, a copy of the will remained, according to which the sole executor of the sculptor’s estate was Anna Graham.

Ernst Neizvestny is buried in the city cemetery on Shelter Island in the USA. Shelter Island is located at the far end of Long Island. The drive from Brooklyn by car takes just over 3 hours; from other parts of New York, an hour to an hour and a half longer. Shelter Island Cemetery, the only one there, is divided by Highway 114 (N. Ferry Road) into two parts. You need the northern part — the one with the Presbyterian church.

You need to park in the small parking lot to the left of the church. Neizvestny’s grave is the first on the left by the hedge.

The white slab on his grave is so noticeable that it is clearly visible not only from the parking lot but even from satellite images.

Sources:

https://www.culture.ru/persons/8994/ernst-neizvestnyi

https://uralcult.ru/ernst-neizvestnyy

https://www.m-necropol.ru/neizvestni-ernst.html