Minsk. Upper Town

The Belarusian school of 20th century art developed in Vitebsk, where in 1918 Marc Chagall was involved in opening an art school, which later went on to become the Practical Art Institute. In the 1920s the artists El Lissitzky, Vera Ermolaeva, and Kazimir Malevich taught there. The Institute’s collection includes the works of another Minsk artist – Mikhail Savitsky. Savitsky fought in the battle of Sevastopol, and had survived concentration camps. Like Danzig, Savitsky was a proponent of the ‘severe style’ in art, infused with its dramatic and expressive view of the world.

The painting “Minsk. Upper Town” depicts the place where May Danzig was born and grew up. This representation of his favourite part of Minsk from a bird’s eye view is perhaps the best-known piece by this artist. These cityscapes show Danzig to be an astute philosopher, skilled with the use of colour, and a bold experimental artist who is not scared of unusual movement and compositional approaches in his work.