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OLEG PROKOFIEV
Short biographical history (from
British archives): Born in Paris in 1928, the second son of Serge
and Lina Prokofiev, Oleg Prokofiev studied art at the Moscow School
of Art from 1944 to 1947. After a first, unsuccessful marriage, Oleg
met and married a young British art historian, Camilla Gray, who
died tragically after a short illness. Allowed by the Soviet
authorities to bring their daughter Anastasia to England, Oleg
settled first in Leeds, where he was awarded a fellowship in the
Fine Arts Department, and where he met his third wife Frances. Oleg
made his name as an artist, exhibiting his wood sculptures and
paintings in a number of countries, and his style was constantly
evolving as a response to the new shapes and lights he discovered in
journeys to America, Africa and India. Some of his poems were also
published. He also dedicated a large part of his life to the
promotion of his father’s life and work, appearing on television and
radio and maintaining a huge correspondence with artists,
musicologists and performers involved in working on Prokofiev and
Soviet music. He died in 1998.
 Oleg
Prokofiev (1928-1998) was a prominent artist,
sculptor and a poet. Son of the great Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev,
he was born in Paris but at the age of seven returned with his parents
to Moscow. He lived there for 35 years, becoming a member of a small
group of artists defying Soviet socialist realism. His abstract
meditative compositions created in the 60s are now exhibited at the
Tretyakov Gallery, the national museum of Russian art in Moscow.
In Moscow he met a young English art
historian, Camilla Gray. The publication of her ground breaking study of
Russian avant-garde ‘Great Experiment: Russian Art, 1863-1922’
infuriated Soviet officials and Camilla and Oleg were not allowed to see
each other for six years. Tragically, two years after they were
eventually allowed to marry, Camilla died.
Oleg decided to move to the West, and
from 1971 until his death in 1998 he lived in London. Here he found a
new family and fresh inspiration. He turned to sculpture. The ‘organic
constructivism’ of his graceful sculptural compositions is clearly
reminiscent of the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s.
Oleg’s late paintings are also
strikingly atmospheric. They astonish both in their freedom of
expression and their symbolic intensity whilst maintaining a strong
sense of continuity within the artistic tradition of the 20th
century.
Oleg exhibited extensively in the UK,
France, Germany and USA.
One-man exhibitions:
1974 - Leeds City Art Gallery
1975 - Galerie Coard, Paris
1976 - University of Surrey, Guilford; Sadlers Wells Theatre, London
1977 - Norther Artists Gallery, Harrogate
1980 - Galerie C. Ratie, Paris
1981 - Galerie Mandragore, Paris
1983 - ACG, London
1984 - The Old Vic, London; Galerie Johanna Ricard, Nurnberg
1984-85 - Galerie ‘Edition de Beauclair’. Munich; Theatre am Gartnerplatz,
Munich
1985 - Woodlands Art Gallery, London
1991 - Malvern Winter Gardens
1993 - Lehmbruck Museum of Modern Sculpture, Germany
1994 - Cadogan Contemporary, London
1999 - DeliArt, London
‘… What interests me, particularly in the paintings I am
doing now, is not only problems of colour and textures in themselves,
although these abstract qualities are very important to me... in
painting human figures I want to explore the relationship between the
figures within a composition, where a new world is recreated. To me this
should reveal itself mainly through the sense of the painted space, by
colour relationships, the interplay of rhythms, brushstrokes and
textures, which form the picture. I believe that this can really express
their togetherness, their being in the same place and in the same time.
Our time.’ Oleg Prokofiev, 1998
The exhibitions of Oleg Prokofiev at the Hay Hill
Gallery were organised with the assistance of
Academia
Rossica.
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Gabriel and Oleg Prokofiev - the
composer's grandson and son respectively - photographed during their
recording of Peter and the Wolf. |
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Oleg Prokofiev and Vladimir Logutenko |
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Prokofiev
Family
The extended
family: in 1997 the Prokofievs met up in Paris to celebrate the
centenary of Lina's birth.
From left to right: Nadejda and Sviatoslav Prokofiev, Beatrice,
Oleg, Cordelia, Gabriel, Nika, Lina, Serge Prokofiev Jr. and Irina
Prokofiev. |
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In
1923 Sergei Prokofiev married Carolina Codina who gave him two sons:
Sviatoslav and Oleg. Sviatoslav and his wife, Nadezhda, lived most
of their life in Moscow but have now moved to Paris close to their
only son, Sergei. Sergei (Serge Prokofiev Jr.) is married to Irina,
with two daughters. Oleg was first married to Sofia Korovina with
whom he had a son, Sergei, who now lives in Germany with his wife
Astrid. From his second wife, Camilla Gray who died at a tragically
early age, Oleg had a daughter, Anastasia. Some time after his move
to Britain, Oleg married Frances who gave him five children, one of
whom, Quentin, died at an early age. Frances Prokofiev, her four
children and Anastasia live in Britain.
From
Three Oranges Journal, No.1, 2001 |
I came to know Oleg Prokofiev very
well over a period of nearly twenty years. We first met in London in
the fall of 1978, when I was there on a Fulbright grant doing
research on my dissertation on Prokofiev's operas, working in the
Boosey and Hawkes archives and other sources. Over the subsequent
years I saw him often when I was in London. He also came to New York
on several occasions, and we appeared together several times there
to talk about Prokofiev. In 1991 we did "An Evening of Conversation
with Oleg Prokofiev and Harlow Robinson" for "Lincoln Center Off
Stage," and in June 1995, we participated in a day-long symposium on
Prokofiev for the New York Philharmonic, which was performing the
score to Ivan the Terrible with screening of the film.
Oleg was a very perceptive and
insightful individual, an accomplished artist in his own right,
whose own life was considerably complicated by having such a famous
father. Despite the many misfortunes he faced, however, Oleg never
lost faith and hope, and cherished the memory of his father's great
talent and significance. Oleg also helped me with finding material
for my biography and for the letters collection, which he kindly
read through and approved not long before his untimely death. At the
New York Philharmonic symposium, he told of how difficult it had
been for him and his brother Sviatoslav in the aftermath of the
arrest of their mother Lina in early 1948, when they became
virtually orphans, and so few people were willing to help them in
attempting to get Lina out of prison and then the labour camp.
Harlow
Robinson
Author of the "Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography" book
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News About Oleg Prokofiev And His Family
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Oleg Prokofiev Trust
https://www.olegprokofievtrust.org/
Welcome to the Oleg Prokofiev
Trust.
The Oleg Prokofiev Trust is a grant-giving charity set up in
memory of Oleg Prokofiev, son of the composer Sergei
Prokofiev. Its funds are directed primarily for the purpose
of helping to support music performance projects and the
advancement of the arts and education in music worldwide for
the public benefit, in particular in relation to the work of
Sergei Prokofiev.
Charity no. 1156800 The majority of grants are for
musical performances, and applications can be made by the
individual performers or promoters. Applications are also
considered by those who are requesting a grant to support
their music research. Grant applications for research
can only be considered for postgraduate or PHD level
researchers or equivalent and cannot include the
researcher’s living costs; a specific outline of the nature
of the research and how the grant would be used needs to be
provided. The size of the grant ranges
from £200 to £5,000. |
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We are very sad to announce that Rupert
Prokofiev died in January 2017.
He was a committed Trustee, passionate about
music and the arts. Rupert is sorely missed by his family
and friends.
9 February 1985 - 2 January 2017. |
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Cordelia Prokofiev wrote to us
in May 2021: "Excitingly a book has been published of Oleg’s
poetry: https://www.labirint.ru/books/781237/
It is currently only in Russian and was complied by Dmitry
Smirnov and Ilya Kukui. Very sadly Dmitry died of Covid-19
last year."
Oleg
Prokofiev:
"Candle of words. Poetic works"
Author: Oleg Prokofiev
Publisher: Academic Studies Press, 2020
Annotation to the book "Candle of words. Poetic works"
This edition for the first time in exhaustive completeness
presents the poetic heritage of the artist Oleg Sergeevich
Prokofiev (1928-1998). Born in Paris, the son of the great
composer, Prokofiev lived the first (most) part of his life
in Moscow, the second in England. Biographically belonging
to the culture of Soviet non-conformism, and then to the
emigration of the third wave, Prokofiev occupied a special
place everywhere, remaining in the shadow of his more
prominent contemporaries during his lifetime. His "quiet"
poetry, developing in the author's mature years the
tradition of free verse, does not lose its significance and
is a unique example of the artistic world, almost completely
hidden from the eyes of readers until now, and only with the
appearance of this book comes to the surface.
Compiled by Ilya Kukui, Dmitry Smirnov-Sadovsky.
More details:
https://www.labirint.ru/books/781237/
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Self-portrait of Oleg Prokofiev,
1980s
(from the family collection) |
Book Introduction
Oleg Prokofiev was a poet,
artist and sculptor. He began writing poetry as a child and continued
to do so throughout his life. Oleg took a notebook for writing and
sketching with him wherever he went, and always wrote in Russian and in
tandem with his career as a visual artist. His artwork was
exhibited widely during his lifetime, but his poetry was only published
informally, often in group publications with other émigré
poets or self-printing small pamphlets.
We are delighted that this
complete collection of his poetry has now been published. We are very
grateful to Ilja Kukuj and Dmitri Smirnov for their hard work on this
project and for making this collection a reality.
Alas, since this book was
prepared for publication, Dmitri Smirnov has been taken from us by
COVID-19. Dmitri and his wife, Elena Firsova, both important Russian
composers, became firm friends with Oleg after they came to the
West, sharing a love of music and enjoying the opportunity to converse
together in Russian. Our family mourns the loss of a friend and a
champion of Oleg Prokofiev's poetry.
Oleg's family - Frances,
Anastasia, Gabriel,
Cordelia and Beatrice Prokofiev |
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