A Visual Monument to the Collapse of Communism
Ernst Neizvestny (1925–2016)
Through the Wall
Complete suite of five original lithographs, 1990
Man Through the Wall
Berlin Wall
Kremlin Wall
Great Wall of China
Wall of Apartheid
• Title: Through the Wall
• Year: 1990
• Medium: Suite of five original embossed lithographs on Arches paper
• Edition: 125/185
• Signature: Each sheet signed in graphite and individually numbered
• Printer: Atelier Ettinger, New York
• Atelier mark: Blind embossed seal of Atelier Ettinger on each sheet
• Commission: Created for Magna Gallery, San Francisco
• Sheet size (each): 30 × 22 in (76 × 56 cm)
• Portfolio size: 31 1/2 × 22 3/4 in (80 × 58 cm), depth approx. 2 cm
• Condition: Light handling wear to sheets; overall very good
• Portfolio: Original black portfolio included
A powerful visual manifesto created at the turning point of world history, Through the Wall is one of Ernst Neizvestny’s most significant graphic cycles. Conceived in New York in 1990, immediately after the collapse of the Communist bloc, this suite stands as a monumental artistic reflection on ideological barriers, human resistance, and the irreversible force of freedom.
Neizvestny — renowned sculptor, philosopher, and moral witness of the 20th century — translates his sculptural language into paper with striking intensity. Each lithograph depicts the human figure confronting, penetrating, or transcending walls that defined entire political systems and epochs. The works are not merely images, but symbols of historical rupture: Berlin, the Kremlin, China, Apartheid — walls both physical and metaphysical.
Created for Magna Gallery (San Francisco), where Neizvestny exhibited with great success in the late 1980s, the series functions as a graphic “monument” to the collapse of communism. The importance of this imagery is underscored by the artist’s later gesture: in 1996, Neizvestny presented a sculpture of the same name, Man Through the Wall, to Boris Yeltsin following his presidential election victory.
Executed at Atelier Ettinger, New York, the suite combines lithography with embossing and hand drawing, reinforcing the tactile, sculptural quality that defines Neizvestny’s oeuvre. Each sheet bears the blind stamp of the atelier and the artist’s hand-signed graphite signature.
This is a rare, museum-quality portfolio — intellectually rigorous, historically charged, and visually uncompromising — by one of the most important émigré artists of the late Soviet era.
