Sophie Ashdown

I have belonged to the New Constructivists art group since 2019, having been invited to join by the founder of the group, Vladimir Dirsh. I first met him back in June 2018 at my first “Artists at Home” open studio event. He was in his early 80s at that time and was hard of hearing, but he was very interested in my work. We talked (somewhat one-sidedly due to his poor hearing!) for quite a while and he told me about the New Constructivists. He said that my work would fit well into the group, but that there were not currently any openings to one of the 12 places. But from that point on, Vladimir became a reliable visitor to every single show I did for the next eight years.

Sadly Vladimir passed away in his home on 29 March, just a few weeks before the start of this year’s show at Chelsea Town Hall. I had only just spoken to him on the phone the week before. He opened the call with the same line he used every time “Hello Beauty, it’s the Beast here!” He got quite a kick out of that!

To hear the news of his passing was quite a blow. We had known that he had been unwell but still he was going out every day, visiting his vast network of friends and contacts in the art world.

Vladimir was born in Yalta, Russia in 1938 and moved to London after the war in 1948. He became a microbiologist and worked in medical research for thirty years. In the late 1960s he started painting, drawing from the aesthetics of 1920s Constructivists and using microbiology as inspiration for much of his work. He did regular exhibitions of his work around London from the 1980s and formed the New Constructivists around 2000.

With the remaining members of the group, we decided to make this year’s show be a celebration and commemoration of Vladimir. We were allowed to borrow some of his works to hang in the show, and on the preview evening we had two of his closest friends share heartwarming memories of him.

It was a great success and everyone had stories to tell about Vladimir. Many tears were shed for this lovely man who connected with so many people.

His funeral is on May 14th and we are all going to go to pay further tribute to his life and his work. Take care old friend, I will miss you.