Pursuits
Pablo Who? This Tycoon Is Betting Half a Billion on Soviet Art
(Bloomberg) -- Andrey Filatov, a Russian transport Tycoon who's worth at least $500 million, say works of `Socialist Realism' art are offering far greater returns than those of masters such as Pablo Picasso and Paul Gauguin. (Source: Bloomberg)
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Joseph Stalin created Socialist Realism by decree in 1932 to glorify communism through art. Now Vladimir Putin’s capitalists can’t get enough of it.
Demand for painters once hailed by the Soviet dictator as “engineers of the soul” has never been higher, in part driven by a resurgence of patriotism and pangs of nostalgia in Russia, which is locked in the tensest geopolitical confrontation since the Cold War over the conflict in Ukraine.