Lucien Dulfan
Lucien Dulfan’s paintings reflect the boundless energy, originality, and passion of the artist’s own personality.
“My art is dramatic, bold and uncompromising: I paint the very interesting human story through the filters of my dreams and subconscious.”
The artist LIVES CONSTANTLY in “STRANGE TIME”' – regardless of war, plague, coronavirus… TIME is ALWAYS “STRANGE” for those who are looking deep into ONESELVES! EVERYDAY! EVERY HOUR! EVERY MINUTE .... is STRANGE! All people look closely at: life! Study! Wedding! Wealth! Fortune! Success! They live in ORDINARY time and wait for IMPROVEMENT OF TIME! Tomorrow will be better! But the artist, poet, writer, musician, composer ... constantly live in STRANGE TIME! They do not wait for this STRANGE TIME, they live in it! Every minute, living with MOTIVATION, with IDEA, with DREAM, with LOVE, with ANGER to injustice, to evil, to racial, national inequality! Without exhibitions, without sales, without collectors, without publications, without support. It is in this STRANGE TIME that real art is born and made. An example of this is my wonderful FRIEND, COLLEAGUE, the famous Iranian-Armenian American artist, Marcos Grigoryan; He was around twenty years older than me. He showed me an example of how to live, to love, to be friends. After we met, he told me: “I have been waiting for you for forty years. We will do exhibitions …” He did not live though... he was killed in a dear to his heart ARMENIA! Robbed … After his death he was also DEFINED as “FAMOUS ARTIST AFTER ARSHILE GORKY” After the STRANGE TIME – the coronavirus, everything will change! EVERYTHING! Life will change, it will become more modest, more prudent. Maybe the time will come more FRIENDLY, more TOLERABLE, more OVERNATIONAL? I don’t know, I would like to. Art will change. Art prices will change. There will be other theater, different music. But what is most important? For the first time in the world, for the first time ever, THE WORLD RECOGNIZED ITS FRAGILITY! Even two world wars did not hit absolutely the whole world! All five continents! Now totally the people of the world are talking at a distance of two meters! Wearing masks! There are no wars on all five continents, only one news, one interest: CORONAVIRUS! This terrible CROWN has covered puffed humanity! It – this mankind has realized its defenselessness, inferiority and powerlessness! This powerlessness can strengthen humanity. To create a more harmonious world, more convenient for CHANGED LIFE! More serious, human, mundane MOTIVATIONS of life will appear.
Lucien Dulfan
North Miami Beach, USA. April 15, 2020
"I am rejoiced by festive-tragic harlequinade of Lucien Dulfan"
A. A. Voznesensky
The picture "Demons" is printed in the school program of high schools in Moscow:
"Lucien Dulfan is a profound artist with a unique individualism. On his canvases, at times, he captures,
as it were, scenes from strange dreams. His creative imagination grotesquely mixes people and objects, the everyday,
ordinary things with the absurd.
Let us also discover ourselves and the world around us, acquire the heritage from masters of millennia of human culture.
Predestination to the brilliance
"A destruction of old men is better than a creation of young". Talmud
Lucien Dulfan belongs to a movement called postmodernism which has been developing since the 60's of the 20th century as a global movement, questioning, as per French critic M. Ragon, the ideology of the modernism, born in the middle of the XIX century together with a myth of infinite progress (which was replaced by the myth about endless crisis).
«Postmodernism appears, – continues Ragon, – as one of the forms of the expression of the crisis. And its reflection against the expressiveness of the forms and the revision of the dogmas is a healthy reaction» (M. Ragon «Le postmodernism en question», 1984)
In our opinion these represent the framework direction, doctrine, flow, tendency etc. for creative work of Lucien Dulfan.
Dulfan is naturally endowed with the same splendid astral Jewish libido so envied by western tantrists and he spills Freud's energy on his canvas.
E.N. Shelestovа, Art Critic, 1998
Latest works from the Homeless series
Biography
Graduated from Odessa State Art Academy in 1963. Class of E.I. Zheltaikov Member of the Union of Soviet Artists since 1973. Participated in 141 exhibitions, including 111 international shows and 40 solo exhibitions worldwide. Since 1990 lives and works in Manhattan, New York, USA.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia • Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia • Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea • Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutger's University, New Brunswick, NJ • Ministry of Culture, Moscow, Russia • Museum of Art, Kiev, Ukraine • Museum of Art, Warsaw, Poland • Museum of Art, Poznan, Poland • Odessa State Museum of Art, Ukraine • Museum of Art, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia • Museum of Art, Poti, Republic of Georgia • Kyrgyz State Museum of Art, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic • National Museum, Voronezh, Russia • Kharkov Museum, Kharkov, Ukraine • Ochakov Art Museum, Ukraine • Odessa Municipal Museum of A. Bletchunoff, Ukraine • Norton & Nancy Dodge Collection of Russian & Soviet Non-Conformist Art • Kostakis Collection, Greece • Bob Guccione Jr., New York City • Renaldo Rotto Collection, Genoa, Italy • Ronald Parker Collection, US • Elena Kornetchuck Private Collection, Pensylvannia, US • Patricia Sutherland Private Collection, New York, US • Hilary & James Benard Private Collection,NEW York, US • Dr.Waleed Ahmad Al-Busairi, Private Collection, Kuwait • Maxim Shostakowich, conductor, Private Collection • Mikhail Filimonov, Alexandra Global Investment Fund, Private Collection • George Robinson, Founder of the Nurture Art Foundation, Private Collection • Lord Chris J. Patten, Member of Parliament, UK, Oxford University Chancellor, Private Collection • Andrey Voznesensky, Russian Poet, Private Collection • Mikhail Ulyanov, Russian Actor, Private Collection • Sergey Yursky, Russian Actor, Private Collection • Leonide Bazhanov, Director of the Modern Art Center, Moscow, Russia • Gallina Nechitaylo, Academician, Advisor on science of President of Russian Federation • Udmurt Republic Museum of Fine Art • Museum of Contemporary Russian Art
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011 • Tadzio Gallery, Kiev, Ukraine
2008 • Q.B. Gallery, New York
2008 • K.B. Gallery, New York
2007 • Longstreth Goldberg Gallery, Naples, FL
2005 • International Images Gallery, Sewickley, PA
2005 • Galeria Tau, Tarragona, Spain
2005 • Vernacular Press Gallery, 560 Broadway, New York
2004 • 7th Floor Gallery, Soho, New York
2004 • Dobro Fine Art, New York
2003 • Gale Gates Gallery, New York
2002 • Caesarea Gallery, Boca Raton, FL
2001 • "MIGDAL" International center of Jewish community programs with support of "Joint" the exhibition in Odessa State Museum of art.
2001 • Camino Real Gallery, Boca Raton, FL
2001 • Ken Elias Gallery, Worth Avenue, Palm Beach, FL
2001 • Belenky Brothers Gallery, Soho, New York
2000 • Zalman Gallery, 57th Street, New York
2000 • Zenit Gallery, Washington, DC
1999 • Paul Edelstein Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee
1999 • Gallery 49, New York City
1998 • Kyrgyz State Museum, Kyrgyz Republic
1998 • DUMBO 3 Gallery, New York
1997 • Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY
1997 • Belenky Gallery, SoHo, New York City
1996 • Gorky Gallery, Madison Avenue, New York
1995 • Gorky Gallery, Madison Avenue, New York
1995 • Heike Pickett Gallery at CMW, Lexington, Kentucky
1993 • KRISTAL Gallery, Warren, VT
1993 • Gallery 13, West Broadway, Soho, New York
1992 • Hew Renaissance Gallery, Soho, New York
1992 • Galerie RKP, Soho, New York
1991 • Neo Persona Gallery, Tribeca, New York
1991 • Aspen Gallery, Colorado
1990 • Sailor Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1990 • Moscow Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1990 • International Images, Sewickley, PA
1989 • Museum of Western and Eastern Art, Odessa, USSR
1988 • International Images Ltd., Sewickley, PA
1988 • International Festival of Cinematography: "Golden Duke", Odessa, USSR
1988 • Municipal Gallery, Genoa, Italy
1988 • Union of Soviet Artists' Exhibition Hall, Moscow, USSR
1988 • Odessa State Art Museum, Ukraine
1987 • Museum of Western and Eastern Art, Odessa, USSR
1984 • Museum of Art, Ochakov, USSR
1977 • Union of Soviet Artists' Exhibition Hall, Odessa, USSR
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2007 • Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia
2007 • Safe-T-Gallery, New York
2006 • SICA, New Jersey
2005 • Allan Stone Gallery, New York, TALENT 2005
2005 • Modern Art Museum, Tarragona, Spain
2002 • Stamford Library Exhibition, Stamford, Connecticut
2001 • DUMBO Double Deuce Art Show, New York, NY
2000 • Gale Gates et al. Gallery Slide Show, New York
2000 • Gallery @ 49, New York Centennial Exhibition, NY
1996 • Gale Gates et al.Gallery. NY Group Show, New York, NY
1996 • Fine Art Auction Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City
1990 • "Glasnost under Glass" Ohio University Art Gallery
1989 • "Jewish Diaspora" Retrospective Exhibition of the last 100 years in Russia, NYC
1975 • Biannual of Northern Countries, Rostok, Germany
1971 • Biannual, Paris, France
SPECIAL RECOGNITIONS AND AWARDS
1977 • First prize for painting awarded by the Ministry of Culture and the Union of Soviet Artists. (The most prestigious recognition awarded in the presiding fifty years of Soviet history.)
1988 • Letter of Thanks from Chief Rabbi of Russia for participation in the exhibition "Jewish Diaspora. Last 100 Years".
2008 / 2009 • NoMA North Manhattan Art Association Award.