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M odest and unpretentious by nature, Artist Boris Sheynes has firmly stood his ground. He has always been and will remain a true artiste in the old, obsolete sense of this word. There is a merit to Boris Sheynes’s art, however, that has been studiously omitted, though tacitly acknowledged, by critics and viewers alike. It is the stark truth that Sheynes remains one of the few, if not the only one, of the men of arts and letters championing the endangered core values of Western civilization – a brilliant chapter in the human development that came to a virtual end in the bloodbath of the two World Wars and the subsequently ensuing “divide and rule” policy of détente pursued for decades by the superpowers, with the whole mankind as the ultimate victim in the chess game of unscrupulous and practically indistinguishable thugs and crooks. A great many critics in numerous articles and treatises have admitted – and some have openly decried – the cultural and spiritual vacuum that enveloped most of the twentieth century and persists to this day.
None of that numbing emptiness comes anywhere close to tainting the art of Boris Sheynes – a unique, dynamic, and deeply moving phenomenon. Carefully preserved by the Artist (and, in her lifetime, his deceased spouse) from the attempts of many to buy it piecemeal for cheap, Boris Sheynes’s portfolio of his own art work includes the celebrated portrait series dedicated to the avant-garde artists of the 1920s, equally if not still more ruthlessly persecuted by the bloodhounds of the Cheka and KGB; woodblock engravings dedicated to Leningrad; woodblock and canvas paintings celebrating the cultural heritage of Italy and the Netherlands; wood panel screens painted with images taken from his Russian-era lithographs; and a conceptual artwork called “The Matchbox,” dedicated to the memory of the Nazi Holocaust victims. The idea had been given birth by a 1957 commission for Artist Sheynes to create a series of matchbox labels commemorating the International Day of Liberation of the Prisoners of Nazism. The tragic metaphor underlying the project (received with unqualified enthusiasm by art lovers and experts from America, Japan, Germany and elsewhere) is a concentration camp, with the matchboxes symbolizing the barracks and the matches representing the inmates. The project had been conceived by Mr. Sheynes back in Russia but, for obvious reasons, could come to fruition only in the West. The hallmark of Mr. Sheynes’s works is their direct appeal to the unsophisticated viewer and utter rejection of the meretricious sophistry of an art critic’s explication. The powerful message of each piece makes it stand on its own feet and organize the space around it. A Sheynes art piece is capable of transforming even a substandard tenement dwelling into a lovely abode.
Besides honoring the memory of Iraida Fomina, Vladimir Favorsky and the other noble-minded individuals who in their lifetime empowered Boris Sheynes to preserve his identity and calling as an artist, this Website displays mugshots of the gang of louts, butchers, and thieves that, by virtue of their office, bear responsibility for the calamities that befell Boris Sheynes and his loved ones. It is hoped that they will at once recognize themselves behind these imaginary bars which may someday become real. In today’s world, with most of the economy mired down in antiquated methods of production and heavily dependent on petroleum imports, the Russian Federation’s soaring oil revenues have facilitated that country’s comeback from the dustbin of history into the forefront of international politics. But the tyrannies of Babylon, Rome and Hitler’s Third Reich had their appointed time, and all fell. David of antiquity beheld his enemies at the height of prosperity and strength, but they passed and were no more, yet he remained.
This site has been set up by the society of friends and defenders of Artist Boris I. Sheynes and the Russian cultural heritage. Samples of Mr. Sheynes’s art creations can be found on the following Web pages:
http://www.artabus.com/borissheynes/
http://www.artlib.ru/?id=11&fp=2&uid=2372
http://russian-art.co.uk/sheynis.htm
http://www.danilov.lg.ua/cgi-bin/lugan/museum/col.pl?cat=5- 2&page=235&show=3413gr-s
Supporters of the arts and champions of human rights who wish to join in support of the cause of Artist Boris Sheynes and Russian culture may contact the European Court of Human Rights, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Office of the Procurator General of the Russian Federation, the Presidential Adviser on Human Rights, and the Russian President, at the following addresses:
Jean-Paul Costa,
President of the Court
European Court of Human Rights
Council of Europe
67075 Strasbourg-Cedex
France
Alexander Sokolov
Minister of Culture and Mass Communications
Kitaiskii proezd
7 Moscow 103693
Russian Federation
Vladimir Ustinov
Minister of Justice
Vorontsovo Pole 4
109830 Moscow
Russian Federation
Yuri Chaika,
Procurator General of the Russian Federation
General Procuracy of the Russian Federation
Ulitza Bolshaya Dimitrovka 15a
103793 Moscow K-31
Russian Federation
Ella Pamfilova
Chairperson
Commission for Human Rights under the President of the Russian Federation
Ipatyevsky per., 4/10
103132 Moscow
Russian Federation
Vladimir Putin
President of Russia
Staraya Square 4
Moscow, 103132
Russian Federation
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