"Titov preferred light, or rather light-gray colors. Sometimes they are so light one has to look hard to see what is depicted in the picture. This is not accidental. Titov does not seem to bother about the particulars. In his paintings and drawings he tackles a purely formal task. The form is in space represented by the sky. But why had Titov not set his sights on the Paris houses and sky in the first three years of his life in Paris? There is no Paris in Titov's works of that time as if he had gone on a short trip there and its strange beauty did not attract, but repulsed him.

Titov complained: 'I am bored here. I sometimes attend museums and galleries, but most of the time I stay in. Paris no doubt is a beautiful city, but it is a museum-city with no throbbing life. There is nothing for me to paint here'.

Indicatively, back from New York, which he had first visited in 1984, Titov said to Rabin: 'Oscar, that is our city. It's clear what to paint there. New York houses need only be put into frames to be our pictures'."

Alexander Glezer