Landscape in Priluki. 1958

“I painted everything that surrounded me: the dim light bulbs over the sheds, the hanging wires on the tilted beams, stray dogs,” Oscar Rabin has remembered. And yet there was room in the artist’s work for more than sheds and depressive tones— he has also found room for light and sunny colours. The watercolour “Landscape in Priluki” demonstrates the artist’s exceptional painterly talent and subtle sense of color. Watercolor belongs to the graphic arts, but its rich palette and golden hues are so complex here that this piece holds its own among oil paintings. “For several years, I have allowed myself not to sell my own paintings if I don’t want to. I sell perhaps one or two a year, and that’s enough for me. I can live with paintings, think about them, and rework them. Maybe it doesn’t make them better, but it makes me feel better, in myself,” Rabin said.