The Ransom of Russian Art

More John McPhee to be listed soon…
First Edition.
In the 16os and 1970s, an American professor of Soviet economics forayed on his own in the Soviet Union, bought the work of underground “unofficial” artists, and brought it out himself or arranged to have it illegally shipped to the United States. Norton Dodge visited the apartments of unofficial artists in at least a dozen geographically scattered cities. By 1977, he had a thousand works of art. His ultimate window of interest involved the years from 1956 to 1986, and through his established contacts he eventually acquired another eight thousand works – by far the largest collection of its kind.
John McPhee investigates Dodge’s clandestine activities in the service of dissident Soviet art, his motives for his work, and the fates of several of the artists whose lives he touched. The Ransom of Russian Art is a suspenseful, chilling, and fascinating report on a covert operation like no other.
The works of art reproduced in this book were chosen by Norton Dodge.
All are from the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, which is now at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University.