Yuri Kuper: biography, history and works of art

Yuri Kuper’s work is deeply linked to time, the passage of time and the marks it leaves on things. He is a member of the group Mémoires, a group of artists formed in the late 1960s. His objects, as well as the space in which he places them, have an aged, stained, eroded material in shades of ochre evoking rust or ashen black-grey. In them is concentrated the memory of the past time, of their life.

Kuper captures with great delicacy and sensitivity the soul of things.

Biography of artist Yuri Kuper

Yuri Kuper was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1940. He studied at the Moscow Academy of Art. In the late 1960s, he became a member of the USSR Union of Painters and exhibited regularly.

He is renowned for his book illustrations and set design skills. In 1970, he designed the sets for Leonid Zorin’s play *The Copper Grandmother* for the Art Theater (MKHAT). The creation was not completed due to opposition from the public authorities of the time.

Kuper left Russia for Israel in the early 1970s. He then moved to London and Paris. He also spent time in the United States.

He was greatly impressed by the freedom, absence of censorship and difference in values of the Western world compared to what he had experienced in Russia.

Works of art by artist Yuri Kuper

Kuper paints old objects—typically found covered in dust in the corners of pantries, attics, and flea markets or discarded on the streets—with a sense of reverence, calling the viewer to examine their aesthetic qualities and discern between his artistic interventions and the markings of time, nature, and use.

Drawing from a limited collection of iconography, including spoons, saws, and paint brushes, he works with worn-out objects in various fashions, such as rendering them through painting and mixed media, attaching them directly onto a surface, or modifying the objects themselves.

Notable Achievements

Kuper’s work appears in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, and the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, among others.

In 2020, his solo exhibition was on view at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, Italy.