Auction introduction: After two successful auctions in New York in 2018 and 2019, the 2020 edition of our dedicated online sale of Russian non-conformist art will be held in London. Escape Artists reflects the hugely varied output of this so-called second avant-garde. Some continued the abstraction pioneered by the artists of the original avant-garde, others produced hyper-realistic works while the Sots-Art artists appropriated official Soviet imagery and emblems to subversive ends. Several emigrated to the United States and Europe, while others continued to work underground in the Soviet Union. What they all had in common was their rejection of the state-imposed doctrine of Socialist Realism, censorship and cultural isolation.