Reflections on a Siberian Exile

Opens Saturday: Arrested in 1949 for who knows what offense against Stalin's rule, artist Eva Levina-Rozengolts (1898-1975) was exiled to Siberia. For the next seven years she cut wood, painted walls and later worked as a medical assistant. Only after her release in 1956 did she resume making art, turning out pastel and ink drawings recounting her lost years. She was one of the few artists who recorded what life was like among the villages and marshes in the remote settlements on the Yenisei River deep in Siberia's remote Krasnoyarsk region. The drawings inspired a new generation of Russian dissidents who had otherwise forgotten her. Forty-five of her brooding, Rembrandtesque images from that time, including the 1958 drawing shown here, are featured in her first Minneapolis exhibition. (10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Ends June 22. $8 adults. The Museum of Russian Art, 5500 Stevens Av. S., Mpls. 612-821-9045 or www.tmora.org) Mary Abbe