Tom and Jeri Ferris Russian Collection

The Tom and Jeri Ferris Russian Collection includes hundreds of posters, ceramics, and other artifacts from the Soviet Union dating from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. It was assembled in the early 1990s by the late Tom Ferris, a Russian studies teacher in Beverly Hills, and Iurii Komov, a Moscow-based writer.

A collection of 234 original paintings documents key changes in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev and his policies of glasnost and perestroika. The works address the full range of the country’s social and political concerns — the failed coup of August 1991, Stalin’s terrors, environmental issues, and the AIDS epidemic — and speak vividly of a nation in the grip of economic and political upheaval in the years before the USSR’s collapse. Their sharp satire embodies Glasnost’s push for transparency and free expression. The collection also includes original notes, memoirs, and video interviews with several of the artists.

Stay Connected