Dmitry Medvedev becomes a highly paid photographer.
The fourth charitable auction of paintings by VIPs, part of the Christmas Alphabet project, took place in St Petersburg on Saturday. Last year, the main lot was Vladimir Putin’s painting, this year it is a photograph called “Tobolsk Kremlin” taken by President Dmitry Medvedev. Mr Putin’s painting fetched 37 million roubles, but the presidential click of the camera cost 51 million.
Painting pictures at the Petersburg Christmas fair and their subsequent sale by auction has become a tradition. Members of the government, intellectuals, and show-biz and television personalities flock to Ostrovsky Square in front of the Alexandrinsky Theatre, where they paint pictures designated by one letter of the alphabet under the guidance of a prominent artist. After the fair, the paintings are sold at an auction at Grand Hotel Europe for charitable causes. In 2007, the VIPs painted free compositions. The year before last, paintings were prompted by Alexander Pushkin’s works, and last year, they were painted on a piece of greatcoat cloth after the theme of Nikolai Gogol’s “Christmas Night.”
The proceeds from the sale have been growing year in and year out. The first auction raised 5 million roubles, the second 20 million, and last year’s philanthropists splashed out around 70 million. The initiator of the auction, the head of the Tsarskoye Selo Carnival Fund, Igor Gavryushkin, attributes the runaway financial success of last year’s auction to the participation of Prime Minister Putin’s entry, “The Ice Pattern,” which was bought for 37 million roubles by Natalya Kurnikova, owner of “Our Artists” gallery.
This year the keynote was the 300th anniversary of the Petersburg suburb of Tsarskoye Selo (the town of Pushkin), which will be marked this summer. For almost a month, VIPs were painting in the open air under the watchful eye of artist Ivan Slavinsky, whose paintings have been bought by car racer Michael Schumacher and billionaire Bill Gates. The amateur painters worked against heavy odds in foul weather. The weather during the Christmas Fair brought to mind the snowstorm in Pushkin’s story “The Captain’s Daughter.” Gennady Khazanov had the hardest time of all because he was lightly dressed and wore no headgear, Mr Slavinsky said. The paint for his “Mist Over the Lake” turned out to be too thick (he was painting on a canvas with acrylic and oil), so that the sky blurred and the overall result was “impressionistic.” Apparently, nearly all the solvent went into Mr Khazanov’s “Mist…,” because when his fellow professional Garik Martirosyan showed up, his paints had to be diluted with vodka.
The organizers of the auction expressed doubts about the proceeds this year: they had planned to invite Dmitry Medvedev, but he declined saying he was too busy. However, those who came to the auction on Saturday were in for a surprise: during the previous night, the President’s photograph, “Tobolsk Kremlin,” had been brought to the hotel Europe. The presidential press spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, says that the panoramic photo of the Siberian city had been made from a helicopter during the winter 2008 election campaign. The black-and-white photo was put on display in a separate room along with the painting “The Emblem” by the speaker of the Petersburg parliamentVadim Tyulpanov, the “Marble Bridge” by Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko, and the picture “Pushkin” by Federation Council speaker Sergey Mironov.
Most of the guests at the “Krysha” (Rooftop) room at the Hotel Europe had come just to watch. For example, Senator Viktor Yevtukhov had no plans to buy anything because the auction “has no well-known artists except Valentina Matviyenko,” and “he didn’t have enough money to buy her painting.” The paintings were discussed mainly in terms of the colour scheme because most of them were in various shades of pink. Valentina Matviyenko assessed the works, noting the improved quality of the paintings, which “would do credit to European halls” whereas the paintings in the previous seasons were more like children’s drawings or artistically packaged autographs. The governor was particularly touched by the paintings by author Daniil Granin, actress Ksenia Rappoport, and Hotel Europe manager Thomas Knoll. The governor paused briefly in front of the President’s work, admiring “its uniqueness” and saying that “it doesn’t even look like a photo.”
The auction began with the beneficiaries expressing their thanks: 70% of the money will be used to fit out kitchens in the apartments being built for veterans and the rest will go to a children’s hospital and to the canteen for a rehab centre for drug addicts and alcoholics called “The House on a Hill.” The head of a veterans’ organization, Ivan Korbutov, thanked “the highly esteemed Valentina Matviyenko” for the money for the kitchens, saying that “now the veterans can live in normal conditions until their deaths.”
The auction proceeded in a spirited way, with prices recklessly hitched by the city’s bureaucrats up to a certain point at which the real buyers pitched in. The first to be sold were “Little Cupid” by Eduard Hill, for 800,000 roubles, Mr Tyulpanov’s “The Emblem” (1 million roubles), Ilya Lagutenko’s “Golden Gates” (500,000 roubles), and Mr Mironov’s canvas (500,000 roubles).
Predictably, the battle raged over the governor’s canvas. The starting price was 20,000 roubles (as for all the other paintings), but it then leapt to 5 million roubles. At that point, the auctioneer made a pause and said it was a good time to have a drink. Drinks were served when the price reached 11 and 12 million roubles. The painting was sold for 13 million roubles to the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company Maxidom, Alexander Yevnevich, who buys all the paintings by Ms Matviyenko. He admitted later that before the auction, the governor had praised him as a patron of the arts so that he “had no choice really.” By the way, Valentina Matviyenko betters her own record every year: the year before last, her canvas was sold for 11 million roubles and last year for 11,5 million.
The central lot was the photograph by the Russian President. The main rivals were Mr Yevnevich and a gentleman who used to make telephone calls all the time during the process of bargaining. The buyers started in a big way: within twenty seconds the price rose to 40 million roubles. Businessman Alexander Yevnevich seemed to be the highest bidder, but even as the auctioneer was bringing down the hammer, Mikhail Zingarevich, co-owner of Ilim Group, named the price of 51 million roubles. Mr Zingarevich explained that he had come towards the end of the auction because he had a limit of 40 million roubles and he had to make many (he didn’t mention to whom he phoned) calls to raise the missing sum. He assured those present that he personally knew President Dmitry Medvedev (which was why he bought the photo) and would himself call him and tell him that he had bought his photo, which he planned to hang in his office.
The total proceeds from the auction amounted to 81.53 million roubles. Hardly any of the buyers lingered to watch the grants being presented to the recipients. The art director, Ivan Slavinsky, just shrugged and said that “photography is the art of the future.”
Konstantin Andrianov