Prime Minister Vladimir Putin toured St. Petersburg and made his artistic debud in an auction for paintings made by celebrities including rock singer Sergei Shnurov, which will raise money for a local hospital, the restoration of a church and a cancer unit in the city.
All of the paintings — one for each letter of the Russian alphabet — are based on a story that begins with a natural resourcebeing stolen in Ukraine. Not Russia's problems with gas transit in Ukraine but Nikolai Gogol's story "The Night Before Christmas," which begins with the devil stealing the moon.
The Gogol story was chosen to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth. All the works are painted on overcoat cloth in another reference to Gogol's short story about a bureaucrat and the cat fur-lined overcoat he buys.
The auction, in its third year, raised 5 million rubles ($160,300) in 2007 and more than 20 million rubles last year through the sell of the paintings. Valentina Matviyenko’s (the governor of St. Petersburg) paintings — "Hedgehog under the Pine Tree" and "Mishki" — fetched 2.2 million rubles and 11 million rubles, respectively, in the auction.
Putin took hand to brush at the end of December when he visited a Christmas fair in his hometown, painting a "U" and the word uzor, or pattern, and a window with curtains with a red pattern on them. How much Putin painted of the artwork is unclear, as they were then finished by a professional artist.
Matviyenko's third painting is for the letter "M" for metel, or blizzard, a painting of a village hit by a storm. Her painting was ahead of Putin's in a poll on the organizer's web site but still behind opera singer Anna Netrebko.
The auction, in its third year, raised 5 million rubles ($160,300) in 2007 and more than 20 million rubles last year through the sell of the paintings. Valentina Matviyenko’s (the governor of St. Petersburg) paintings — "Hedgehog under the Pine Tree" and "Mishki" — fetched 2.2 million rubles and 11 million rubles, respectively, in the auction.
Putin took hand to brush at the end of December when he visited a Christmas fair in his hometown, painting a "U" and the word uzor, or pattern, and a window with curtains with a red pattern on them. How much Putin painted of the artwork is unclear, as they were then finished by a professional artist.
Matviyenko's third painting is for the letter "M" for metel, or blizzard, a painting of a village hit by a storm. Her painting was ahead of Putin's in a poll on the organizer's web site but still behind opera singer Anna Netrebko.
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Vladimir Putin's picture |
Valentina Matviyenko's picture |
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