Fates of many talented people creating in Soviet times were recorded for the lack of demand and impropriety forever. Occasionally their cloths and manuscripts get dusty ingloriously in store-rooms, private archives, and their names are remembered by relatives only. Now their creation arouse our interest, we dive into the world of our past hiding under the names which are unknown for many people.
     Born in the border of epochs - November 10, 1916 - Victor Yulievich Apfelbaum shared the fortune of prominent figures of that far from placid time in many respects. Mother of the artist - teacher in musical college and the Russian Academy of Music named after the Gnesins - and his father were friends with Gnesins and many other talented people who visited their house (I.Chwojnik, A.Osmerkin, A.Cuprin).
     Victor Yulievich didn't become, despite of his mother's wish, a professional pianist, but music had doubtless spiritualizing influence on his pictorial paintings.
V.Y.Apfelbaum brilliantly left the musical college, labor school and three courses of the Artistic college named after 1905 (working in Cuprin's art school at the same time). After two successfully passed courses of Leningrad Art Academy (preparatory and the first ones), he moved to the Moscow Art university named after V.I.Surikov, into the studio of professor A.A.Osmerkin. Right after the university, V.Y.Apfelbaum was evacuated to Samarkand at the beginning of the war where in 1942 he defended his degree work "Seeing-off to the army".
     The artist could speak French and German, and the deepness of knowledge in the sphere of music and fine art surprised many friends of Victor Yulievich. Gift of a musician in the artist was noted by a famous pianist T.Neyhaus who wanted, as well as some other professors, to take him as a "competitive pianist" in the Moscow conservatory named after P.I.Chaikovsky. Elena Fabianovna Gnesin affirmed that music in particular "gave him delicate, clear, straight perception of the world and the ability to reproduce this on canvas by paint".*
     The most favorite composers of the artist were Shopen, Shuman and Scrabin, the most favorite operas didn't leave him: even in the years of destitution, hunger, in the hardest minutes V.Y.Apfelbaum found repose, support in them gaining strength to read poems, whistle the most favorite arias and even operas, thus by the words of his friend, artist L.M.Haimov, "filling up the spiritual vacuum".** Many of those who had the chance to talk to him, remember his concerts-improvisations, no one can forget the presence of mind and will-power of the artist.
     Art of Victor Yulievich made sense to his life, he always strived for taking part in exhibitions and sell his paintings which only succeeded partly (this was his only source of income).The fact that he couldn't earn money otherwise left a mark on some of his works unfortunately (mainly of 50-60s), however the majority of them proceeded from the principle, not typical for that time - art for the art itself. In that question V.Y.Apfelbaum shared the ideas of R.R.Falk, one of his friends. "Now I felt all the attractive force of art and the whole meaning of price that I paid for it..." - wrote V.Y.Apfelbaum in one of his letters. - "A day spent by the easel sometimes seems to me compensative for everything in life".
     The high exactingness to himself in particular, thoughtful analysis, perspicacity, delicate knowledge of nature lie in the basis of paintings of the artist which he saw like his friends: " I feel my canvas, my work, like a close friend, the most intimate, like a living creature which is worth to live for".
     "Only not to imitate anything and not to strive after anybody, be yourself..." - that is one more principle of the artist.
The style of the artist was formed based on the deep learning traditions of Russian and French art. By the culture of writing, reproduction of light and air on the painting, different tints of the nature's state V.Y.Apfelbaum was closer to impressionists. But the unity of mood is peculiar to his paintings, not the impressionistic tendency to dematerialization of the motif. In that case the art of V.Apfelbaum is tightly closed up with the art of Russian artists in the end of 19th century. He took over the inclination to "Jack of Diamonds" and Cezanne from his friend and teacher A.Cuprin.
Landscape, portrait and still life equally interested the artist.
     The theme of a big city life - one of the main in his art. V.Y.Apfelbaum managed to embody the charm and beauty of old and new, building Moscow.
     The landscapes of the Crimea, Moldavia, Kassimov and Vereya are inspired with a particular lyricism, the delicate tints of nature's moods are expressed in them (the artist liked to paint the same subjects at different lighting when the decorative motive loses its independent significance becoming the ground of reproducing the unsteady light life).
The warm coloring built on thin gradations of light, unity of the pictorial and composition structure, accuracy of taken color relationships, nuances in reproducing the light, the life of a shape in space were principal for the artist.
     The ability to reproduce the originality and the uniqueness - one of the bright features of Apfelbaum's art. A particular melodiousness, expressiveness and spirituality, loving attitude to what is pictured differ his works.
     Still life has a particular place in the Apfelbaum's art. A dish and a jug, a table-cloth, a bunch of flowers - animated things invested with their own life, not difficult, but deeply poetic. In the still life, like in the other genres, the artist wasn't looking for something unusual, he could find the artistic charm and importance in ordinary and everyday things.
     For understanding the art of the painter his portraits are especially important. The eye of the artist not only caught the smallest details of nature reconstituting a living image in front of us, but also opened the spiritual world of his character, got into in the very being of the portrayed person.
     V.Y.Apfelbaum devoted his entire life to art, the whole of himself. In 1963 a serious disease took the artist's life away still young, full of creating forces, but even that what he had time to create will always remain as a beautiful page in Soviet art.
M.Shilovskaya, Moscow, 1996
* The person who saw the sprouts. - "Spark", 1964, № 24, P 19.
** Haimov (reference to the page of the memories book of the Haimov's article).