Vitaly Komar was born on September 11, 1943, in Moscow, and Alexander Melamid was born on July 14, 1945, in Moscow. Both artists attended the Moscow Art School from 1958 to 1960 and the Stroganov Institute of Art & Design, Moscow, from 1962 to 1967. Their collaborative work began in 1965, and in 1967, they started the SOTS Art movement, the Soviet version of Western Pop Art. Their first international exhibition was at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, in 1976. Komar & Melamid became United States residents in 1978. In 1981, they were the first Russian artists to receive a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Notorious dissidents before they left the Soviet Union, the artists have since been called "exasperating expatriates" for their travesties of Socialist Realism.
Selected works from the Kolodzei Collection of Russian and Eastern European Art
The First Auction of American Souls in Moscow was one of the first private art auctions in Russia. It took place in Mikhail Odnoralov's studio in Moscow in 1979 and was organized by the Gnezdo group (Skersis, Donskoi, Roshal).
