Sergey Bermeniev

«8 Stars» by Sergei Bermeniev. Part I

Collection of the artist

Curator: Marina Bermenieva

This project is presented by the Cultural Fund “National Portrait Gallery” and the Company “ProLabCenter”

The present photo-project of Sergei Bermeniev «Eight Stars» consist of eight mini-novels, black-and-white portraits of Hollywood stars and of the world’s artistic elite. The show is set up on the initiative of Nikolai Kanavin («Pro-Lab Center») and the author’s wife Marina Bermenieva under the patronage of the Cultural Fund «National Portrait Gallery».

Sergei Bermeniev, a master of photo-portraiture, is, unfortunately, not widely known in Russia. There have been no exhibitions of his works here, he does not give interviews to the press and is more popular abroad than in his home country.

Important political leaders and Nobel Prize winners, actors and directors, writers and musicians, artists and sculptors have set to Sergei Bermeniev: Laura Bush and Kofi Annan, Meryl Streep and Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson, Richard Gere and Mstislav Rastropovich, Lisa Minelli and Tina Turner, Al Pacino and De Niro, Julio Iglesias and Mireille Mathieu, David Bowie and Luciano Pavarotti, Issac Stern and Joseph Brodsky, Elie Wiesel and Edward Radzinski, Dizzy Gillespie and Yevgeni Kisin, Maya Plisetskaya and Vladimir Voinovich, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Oliver Stone, Giulietta Masina and Federico Fellini — the total list includes more than 250first-rate stars.

It is hard to predict whom Sergei may choose as his next model. This could be an actor who inspired him with a new role, a composer, whose music left a profound impression, a sportsman, a politician, an artist. For one of his last portraits sat Boris Yefimov, the principal caricaturist of the Soviet Union, who turned 107.

Great charm and wide knowledge allow Sergei Bermeniev to do something more than just to create the likeness of a celebrity. His models are able to relax during the session. When you look at the portraits of Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Sharon Stone, Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Quentin Tarantino and others you can instantly see that the atmosphere of the session was very easy, that there was some fine conversation, so the work emerges as a result of an unhurried talk between friends. The portraits that appear as a result will be remembered instantly and forever. Each one of them is a revelation for the viewer.

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