They are bold, assertively defiant and iconic of a non conformist era in Russia. Yet apart from being a modernist, together with the likes of Picasso and Warhol, no one description fits this Russian Jewish artist. His works range from extreme abstraction to the most naturalistic representation and sometimes, these terms could be used all in a single work.

Born in 1926 in the USSR, Ernst Neizvestny is one of the few artists around today who speaks of Henry Moore and Andy Warhol as contemporaries. He is the first visual artist from the Soviet Union since 1920 to be acknowledged in the west as a leading sculptor. He is best known for his courageous confrontation with Khrushchev in 1962 when a large exhibition held by non-conformist artists in Moscow was closed down only a few days after it opened. In 1975, with the help of Moore and Senator Edward Kennedy, Neizvestny successfully migrated to the US. In 1989, he returned triumphantly to be recognized in Russia by the President and Prime Minister as Russia's own even though Neizvestny still resides in New York today.

Neizvestny is best known for his sculptures, often based on the forms of the human body done in his characteristic expressionism with powerful plasticity. Most of his works are arranged in extensive cycles, the most known of which is The Tree of Life, one of which is outside the UN building in New York. Neizvestny defines his sculptures as a "dialogue between flesh and spirit" and most of his works are huge. In the words of John Russell, art critic for The New York Times, he is "one of nature's monumentalists."

Apart from sculptures, Neizvestny is also known for his etchings and sketches. His series of two hundred etchings entitled Man's Fate has been held up to the level of Picasso's Guernica and Rouault's Miserere. In 1965, an international jury awarded him first prize in a competition sponsored by UNESCO in Belgrade to honour the 700th Anniversary of Dante. Among the participants were such notables as Robert Rauschenberg and Salvador Dali.

On 12th January through the end of February 2011, Asia renews its acquaintance with this modern master in Singapore. In his countless exhibitions across the world, he has only exhibited in Asia once Taiwan in 1988 (causing a "diplomatic occasion" with Mainland China). John Erdos Art will bring to Singapore some of Neizvestny's most iconic sculptures, etchings and sketches. One of the big sculptures exhibiting is The Falling Man done in 1984 after the South Korean passenger airliner got lost and was downed by the Soviet Union over Siberia with 250 passengers on board. The Russian and Koreans turned to him for a monument which was never done, instead he created this sculpture as a reminder that a crime against man was committed.

Other significant pieces include Orpheus inspired by the greatest musician of Greek Mythology and a few pieces from the Power of the Beast series where the pieces are part human, part animal; most notable being Bird-Boy and Satyr.