Escaping post-WWI counter-revolutionary Russia, Vassilieff worked his way to the Northern Territory and Queensland, where he began painting as a hobby (1923-29). While in South America from 1930 Vassilieff briefly undertook academic art training, but by the early 1930s he began to break away from conventional styles of painting.
Read MoreHe had a solo exhibition in Wertheim Gallery, London (1934-5) and after a period painting in Europe he returned to Sydney in 1936. Moving to Melbourne one year later, Vassilieff commenced work as a teacher and painted life as he observed it in Fitzroy, Carlton and rural Warrandyte (where he built the house 'Stonygrad' from local materials). His colourful and exotic personality made an impact on the Melbourne art community, and his belief in the role of the artist as social critic and his enthusiasm for modern, child and folk art was influential on many of his Melbourne contemporaries.
Vassilieff's distinctively vibrant and expressionistic painting resulted from an emotional response to life: "I wanted to paint living life, life and nature and people in action and movement." His increasingly imaginative work was not well received critically or commercially. From 1944, suffering from isolation, an inadequate income and a decline in health, Vassilieff found solace in the region of the River Murray, visiting its conducive environment often and, from 1954 staying for a short-lived teaching role. The people and events of the Mildura environs became a preoccupation in paintings that are psychologically revealing of both the artist and his subjects.
Vassilieff also carved objects in Lilydale limestone, a difficult medium, predominantly during the late 1940s and early 1950s. He produced over one hundred highly original carved works that typically, like his painting of the time, combine semi-abstract figures or subjects with a liveliness and stylisation reminiscent of some folk art.
Vassilieff was an associate of John and Sunday Reed, John Reed encouraging Vassilieff and supporting his last exhibitions. Heide was a solace for Vassilieff in the final years before his early death there in 1958.
