Igor Kamenev

Igor Kamenev was born into the family of a Soviet Navy captain in the city of Vladivostok in 1955 and has been living in Moscow since 1956. In 1974, after the exhibition at the Exposition of Economic Achievements where his famous self-portrait with the mouth screwed shut with bolts was displayed, he was featured in Newsweek magazine. That same year the U.S. State Department invited Igor Kamenev to leave the totalitarian USSR.

From 1974 on, Kamenev took part in more than 30 clandestine and semi-official exhibitions of the Moscow underground. For several years, he was confined to psychiatric wards as punishment for his liberal thinking and dissident activities. In 1978, as part of a group of like-minded artists, he joined the Moscow Consolidated Labor Union Committee of Graphic Artists (28 Malaya Gruzinskaya). In 1981, Igor Kamenev was baptized by Father Dmitri Dudko and received the blessing to paint religious subjects.

In 1986, as a member of the board of the painting section, Kamenev called for the abolition of censorship and became one of the organizers of the World of Painting group. In 1987, the Japanese Iomiuri magazine published an interview with him about efforts to destroy the cult of Stalin and Lenin.
In 1988, an exhibition to mark the Millenium of Christianity in Russia was organized on his initiative (the first exhibition of modern religious art in the USSR).

Exhibitions held in 1992:
Column Hall of the House of the Unions;
Tudelu Valerie;
Taurida Palace in St. Petersburg and
a personal exhibition at the Central House of Artists (Moscow).

In 1993, with the assistance of INTO Company, the artist’s personal album was published. The presentation was held at the press center of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow. Kamenev also worked on the drafting of the Russian Federation’s national emblem.

Invited by the Slovak Ministry of Culture and by Mr. Yastrzhembsky, the Russian ambassador, Kamenev had personal exhibitions at the National Museum in Bratislava and at Sparkasse Baden (Austria).

In 1994, he joined the Board of Trustees of Russian Tennis and created the Russian Cup.
In January 1995, the Moscow City Bank sponsored Igor Kamenev’s personal exhibition at the Central House of Artistsin Moscow.
In 1996 the gallery ROMOLO ESPANA acquires at artist a large collection of pictures. In it to a year due to financial support of the company REAL, he begins the project of the edition of this album and international exhibition.
In the beginning of 1997 the painter created a number of works for the study of the Residency of the President of Russian Federation Boris Eltsin.
Igor Kamenev’s paintings can be found in private collections in Russia, the United States, Japan, Finland, Germany, Yugoslavia, Argentina, France, Italy, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Slovakia, Australia, England, Chile, Austria, Poland, Bolivia, Ecuador and Spain.