Mikhail
Alexeyevich Kulakov

(b. 1933, Moscow) Abstractionist artist, an outstanding representative of the "second avant-garde" painter, schedule.

After studying two years at the Institute, he left this prestigious university, "to write like Repin."

In 1959 he entered the production faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema in the course of Nikolai Akimov (he graduated in 1963).

In the 1960s, he worked as a stage designer in Volkhov, Leningrad and Moscow, as an illustrator in the publishing houses Soviet Writer and Lenizdat.

Being a pioneer of post-war Russian abstraction and a staunch nonconformist, Kulakov practically did not exhibit in the USSR for 20 years (only a few opening days were held in closed physical research institutes). In 1976 he emigrated to Italy (to the “Taganrog Farm among the Umbrian Hills”), after which his solo exhibitions were held in Rome, Milan, Perugia, Bari, Naples, New York, Vienna, Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Frankfurt and other cities of the world. In 1984 he became an honored member of the Academy of Arts. Pietro Vannucci (Perugia), in 2003 - the winner of the XXVII International Emigration Award. He published essays on artists A.Zverev and E.Mikhnov-Voitenko and the novel “Levashevsky Chronicles” (USA), “Letters to Myself” (Germany).

Kulakov mosaics adorn one of the stations of the Roman metro.

Since 1988, Kulakov began to exhibit in our country: in the Soviet Cultural Foundation (Moscow, 1989), Arsenale and Manege (Riga, Leningrad, 1990), the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin (Moscow, 1993), the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, 2008) and others.

The artist's works are stored in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin, in a number of museums and private collections in Russia, Italy, USA, Germany, Canada.