Sotheby’s 1988 Avant Garde and Russian Contemporary Art auction—the first international auction since the Bolshevik Revolution—offered collectors a rare view of art created behind the Iron Curtain. This exhibition commemorates that event, leaning on the recollections of auction organizer Simon de Pury, and featuring Soviet artists such as Ilya Kabakov, Vadim Zakharov, and Natalia Nesterova.

Pre-auction exhibition of Sotheby’s
Russian Avant-Garde and Soviet Contemporary Art at Sovincentr, Moscow (1988).
Photo: Alexander Lavrentiev © Alexander Lavrentiev