Konstantin Vasiliev. A Portrait of My Sister Lyudmilla with a Dog. 1967

A Portrait of My Sister Lyudmilla with a Dog (Konstantin Vasiliev, 1967)

Konstantin Vasiliev. A Portrait of Anatoly Kuznetsov. 1967

A Portrait of Anatoly Kuznetsov (Konstantin Vasiliev, 1967)

Konstantin Vasiliev. Napoleon. 1967

Napoleon (Konstantin Vasiliev, 1967)

Konstantin Vasiliev. A Provincial School-Teacher. 1968

A Provincial School-Teacher (Konstantin Vasiliev, 1968)

The subject was at least in his mid-seventies at the time of sitting, so, that would put his birth date in the 1890s. This is a man who had seen the Old Empire, the First World War, the Revolution, the NEP, the Five-Year Plans, the Purges, the Great Patriotic War… and he lived long enough to see Sputnik and Gagarin. From Rakhmaninov to Rock… There is wisdom, and great sorrow, too, in his face. It reminds us that wisdom is not cheap, it is not come by easily, and that it takes more than a few years to acquire it.