Semyon Faibisovich (Семён Файбисович, born 1949, Moscow) is a Russian photorealist painter. Trained as an architect at the Moscow Architectural Institute (1966–72), he turned to painting after encountering American photorealism, and from 1976 painted trompe-l’oeil scenes of the everyday Soviet street — bus commutes, queues, station crowds.
From photorealism to the blurred photograph
He first exhibited covertly in 1976 and internationally from 1987. Later cycles moved from painted realism toward images built from blurred photographs, among them the “Evidence” cycle (1993) and “Comeback” (2008).
Exhibitions and collections
The State Tretyakov Gallery held a Faibisovich retrospective in 2019. His work is also held by the Zimmerli Art Museum, the Ludwig Collection and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, and he is represented by the Ovcharenko gallery in Moscow.
Some exact work titles and dates for Faibisovich rest on gallery and auction records rather than a full scholarly catalogue; uncertain details are omitted here rather than stated as fact.