Yevgeny Rukhin, a prolific Nonconformist artist, showed the willingness and strength to defend his artistic expression during his short career. A Leningrad artist, Rukhin produced work that abruptly challenged Social Realism while staging controversial events such as the Bulldozer Exhibition (1974) with fellow artist and friend, Oscar Rabine. Less than two years after this underground exhibition was violently broken up by police, Rukhin died in his sleep, surrounded by toxic painting supplies in his studio, in a fire allegedly ignited by the KGB in efforts to force him into conformity.

In 1966, when Rukhin was just twenty three, his work was received by the Betty Parson's Gallery in New York, alongside artis...