Boris Georgievich Birger (1923 - 2001)

Boris Georgievich Birger

Boris Georgievich Birger (Russian: Борис Георгиевич Биргер) was a Soviet artist of the second half of the twentieth century of Jewish origin. He is known as a portrait painter, a representative of "unofficial art", a follower of symbolism.

Boris Birger developed his individual style of portrait painting, recognizable by his colorism. He often portrayed representatives of the liberal creative intelligentsia and was twice expelled from the Union of Artists of the USSR because of his criticism of official cultural policy.

In the 1970s his work was recognized abroad, especially in Germany, and from 1990 he lived in that country.