The Nature of All Things: The Art of Victor Koulbak

T H E A RT O F

VICTOR KOULBAK

All images courtesy of the Didier Aaron Gallery

Slipper Lobster, 2006 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Pigeon, 2006 Silverpoint, watercolor 12½ x 10 in.

Man with a Blue Box, 2012 Oil on canvas 16 x 13 in.

Full Face N°2, 2008 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Fennec, 2011 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Autumn Mouse, 2011 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Darwin’s Ancestor N°2, 2011 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Face N°1, 2004 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Face N°2, 2010 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Frog on Tree Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Lunch Time, 2011 Oil on canvas 16 x 13 in.

Eve with a Bird, 2012 Oil on canvas 16 x 13 in.

Face N°3, 2009 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Nude N°2, 2009 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Squirrel N°2, 2010 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Parrot, 1998 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Bat, 2009 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Hunter, 2005 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

VICTOR KOULBAK

Young Tiger, 2008 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Antelope, 2007 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

F E B R UA RY 6 – M AY 2 4 , 2 0 1 5

Frog, 2009 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

Unfashionable Face, 2004 Silverpoint, watercolor 12 ½ x 10 in.

COVER DETAIL Unfashionable Face, 2004 DESIGNED BY Sara Hagale

jcsm.auburn.edu Face N°2, 2010

koulbak new.indd 1-3

© 2015 Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University.

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer.

The Nature of All Things TH E ART O F

KOULBAK

The Nature of All Things

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KOULBAK koulbak new.indd 4-6

objects, seem to be part of a strange and magical existence, resisting the very measured realism of Koulbak’s expression that makes them all the more fascinating, delightful, and curious.

Born in 1946, the artist Victor Koulbak grew up in a congested apartment in Moscow where he took solace from his stressful living situation by focusing on drawing. At the age of 12, he began his formal art training which continued throughout his teen years at the school attached to what is now known as the Russian Academy of Arts, where the Old Masters were a primary focus and a huge inspiration to the young artist. He worked as a draughtsman and illustrator to support himself while a student.

After being in a number of exhibitions in Moscow that the Communist Party officials shut down, Koulbak immigrated to Paris in 1976. He now lives and works in Malta.

Victor Koulbak image courtesy of Didier Aaron Gallery

Within a short time after arriving in Paris, Koulbak was participating in one-man and group exhibitions on an international scale. For almost five decades, his work has been included in presentations held in France, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Japan, Italy, Great Britain, Austria, Germany, Malta, Canada, and the United States. In a 2013 catalogue introduction, none other than Charles, Prince of Wales, has noted, “His abiding belief that beauty is a manifestation of God confers on his work an almost sacred dimension that renders it beyond fashion and beyond the confines of time.”

Detail: Man with a Blue Box, 2012

The selection of art for this exhibition celebrates two distinct bodies of work: Koulbak’s nature studies and his portraiture. The nature studies are deliberate objective renderings that focus on the act of seeing and interpreting the subject with both clarity and precision through the artist’s utilization of his tour de force technique.

Where one might expect visceral characteristics of animation and vibrancy, Koulbak draws likenesses of frogs, a mouse, a squirrel, and a falcon, among other creatures, in what seem like pensive poses of awareness of being viewed.

His careful consideration of the appearance and techniques of the Old Masters makes us think we are actually looking at the work of an artist who lived at another time, someone who had walked the earth with Leonardo Da Vinci, Hans Holbein, or Albrecht Durer. Possibly it is Koulbak’s preference for silverpoint drawing on prepared paper, which harkens back to the drawings by those early artists, or perhaps it is because Koulbak’s work recalls a similar profound sense of austerity and exactitude that also pervades the work of these Old Masters. Even though the work at first elicits these references to an earlier era, it becomes clear upon further observation that they are of our own time. The drawing, Face N°2, 2010, of a young girl dressed in a sleeveless top, with her bobbed haircut and clear blue-eyed gaze directed at the viewer, is not a demure child of the Renaissance, but rather is a self-assured young woman of the 21st century.

Koulbak’s technical mastery of silverpoint is breathtaking. This early Renaissance method of drawing entails dragging a silver (or other metal) stylus over a gessoed surface or ground. The slight tooth (irregular surface) of the prepared

His human portraits, especially those in silverpoint, are both evocative and ephemeral.

These captivating personalities connect with the viewer through their unrelenting gaze, or in the case of Nude N°2, 2009, through an uninhibited toss of the head and posture of nonchalance.

In the three portraits painted in oil, the artist’s choice of color does not so much define or describe, but further articulates the ethereal nature and otherworldliness of each subject.

These three, because of their costumes, setting, and accompanying animate and inanimate

paper results in a little of the silver to remain behind when a mark is made. Preparing the paper support can be difficult. Historically, artists used a mixture of bone ash, chalk, or lead white with rabbit skin glue as the binder to coat the paper.

Today, artists often use an acrylic gesso, gouache, or commercially prepared clay-coated paper, but Victor Koulbak still prepares a traditional ground. Another problem is how unforgiving silverpoint is. The artist must command complete control since these drawings cannot be erased or altered once a mark is made. For these reasons, the process became all but obsolete in the 18th century with the introduction of improved drawing materials like graphite.

In silverpoint, what begins as a gray line transforms over time to a warm, mellow brown tone through natural oxidization from exposure to the environment. Koulbak has characterized the change in color as the “self-developing of the drawing.” His silverpoint drawings emanate a sense of temporality. They seem in the process of evaporating off the page; those enhanced with a wash of watercolor magically solidify.

Whether the subject is human or animal, these works demonstrate the artist’s ability to uncover and describe the distinctive and most revealing qualities that define his subjects. It is clear that Victor Koulbak discerns the nature of all things and through his singular artistic genius is able to coalesce it into an enchanting, if not fleeting, image.

We are grateful to the artist for this opportunity to share his work with our audience. We are also appreciative of Alan Salz and Nancy Druckman at Didier Aaron Gallery in New York City for working with the staff at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University. This exhibition was made possible with funds from the Philips Endowment.

Marilyn Laufer, PhD Director

Detail: Nude N°2, 2009

“They seem in the process of evaporating off the page…”

Squirrel N°2, 2010

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