#obrazdne | Vladimir Baranoff – Rossine: Green Apocalypses, 1912
(Ukrainian-French, 1888 – Auschwitz 1944)
“Green Apocalypses”, 1912, oil on canvas
Private Collection (photo from Ukrainian Museum, NY)
After studying in Odessa and St. Petersburg, Baranoff-Rossine presented works at the first avant-garde exhibitions in Moscow and St. Petersburg, along with Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Alexandra Exter, and the Burliuk brothers, among others. He also participated in an important exhibition in Kiev in 1908, dedicated to the synthesis of painting, sculpture, poetry and music. Baranov-Rossiné would have a lifelong interest in the idea of a synthesis of the arts, a legacy of Russian symbolism.
In 1910 he went to Paris, where he became friends with Hans Arp and with Robert and Sonia Delaunay. His colored paintings of the time, which he exhibited regularly at the Salon des Indépendants, show an assimilation of Cubism, Futurism and Orphism.
When WWI broke out, Baranov-Rossiné moved to Norway. Between 1917-25, his production was prolific; He exhibited with Marc Chagall, Nathan Altman, Yurii Annenkov, and other representatives of the Soviet avant-garde, and taught painting in a Petrograd studio.
Baranov-Rossiné moved back to Paris in 1925. He continued to paint in a more surrealist way, made some sculptures, experimented with materials, colors and sounds, and exhibited regularly in Parisian Salons. His works can be found in many public collections, including those of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In 1943 he was arrested in France by the Gestapo as a Jew and deported. He was murdered in 1944 in Auschwitz.
