Portrait of Vladimir Bukovsky by Mikhail Lemkhin / c. 1980s.

Photographic portrait of writer Vladimir Bukovsky with head tilted, closed eyes, and smoking a cigarette. Pencil-signed on the mat: 3/45 • Mikhail Lemkhin; on the back of the print: ink stamp ©MIKHAIL LEMKHIN, ink inscription ©mikhail Lemkhin; ink stamp: PHOTO BY: | MIKHAIL LEMKHIN | 2327 – 38th AVENUE | SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116 | (415) 664-7677, pencil inscription 3/45 Mikhail Lemkhin; pencil inscription on the back of the mat: (top) ВЛАДИМИР БУКОВСКИЙ | VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY, (bottom) VI.

Size: mat: 43.2 x 35.7 cm; window: 21.5 x 18.5 cm; print: 25.3 x 20.3 cm.

Limited edition of 45, of which this is № 3, signed and stamped by the artist.

Sitter: Vladimir Bukovsky [Владимир Константинович Буковский] (Russian, 1942 – 2019).

Popularity:

Bukovsky left the Soviet Union, where he was kept in prison for his political views, in exchange for Luis Alberto Corvalán, a Chilean communist. The event was commemorated in the following folk verse:

Обменяли хулигана
На Луиса Корвалана.
Где б найти такую блядь,
Чтоб на Брежнева сменять!

This can be translated as a Haiku:

A troublemaker was exchanged for Luis Corvalán...
Where to find a whore to exchange for Brezhnev?