The paintings of Georgy Chiganov, known as ‘The Wanderer’, offer a unique opportunity to view the former Soviet Union through the eyes of one of its leading watercolourists. His insight and ability have long been recognised within the CIS with works on display in the Tretiakov Gallery and the State Museum in Moscow, the State Museum of Tashkent and the Leningrad Museum.

The work of Georgy Chiganov provides a rare chance to view the development of the Soviet Union through the eyes of one of its leading watercolourists. Chiganov's output has long been recognised within the CIS with works on display in the Tretiakov Gallery and the State Museum in Moscow, the State Museum of Fine Arts, Tashkent and in the St Petersburg Museum. In over 200 exhibitions, he has won worldwide renown and this exhibition at the Prospekt Gallery in Arundel offers one of the few opportunities to see his work in Britain.

In time-honoured tradition, Chiganov was given the title "The Wanderer", a tribute to the nature of the nomadic, prolific artist as pioneer; he produced hundreds of drawings, watercolours, landscape and genre paintings, all inspired by his travels through Siberia, Kazakhstan and Usbekistan.

Born in West Kazakhstan, after serving in the Soviet Army during the Second World War, Chiganov studied art at the Tashkent Benkov Republican School of Arts, graduating in 1954. He began his career as a journalist, writer and book illustrator but his passion lay in painting watercolours and his superb draughtsmanship allowed him to reveal his innate understanding of Soviet life, landscape and the nature of its people. He produced series of paintings which reflect episodes from USSR history and the dreams for its future.

His work is immediately distinctive, sparing in detail yet impressive in its dynamism and compact composition. His watercolour landscapes - almost graphic poems - are noted for their perception and vigorous style and for his ability to understand, capture and convey the essence of his native land. He does not follow the natural colours of geographical features; instead the grandeur of nature is expressed through his ideas and feelings in transparent watercolour (as in the German technique of Lasieren). He is aware of beauty where others see only the mundane; newly erected buildings, a city panorama in evening light, trees grouped as in a bouquet of flowers, all sparkle with crimson, cerise and gold. His language of colour is unexpected yet cogent.

An adherence to labour themes - dams, steel girders, ocean going ships - depict man and his struggle for survival. Socially active, Chiganov donated works to municipal galleries and schools during his lifetime.

Through Chiganov's work, the essentially private nature of the Russian psyche comes to life in a manner rarely seen and understood by Western eyes.

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