Soviet Art

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai (1914 – 1998). Summer garden. Pastel. 1955

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai (1914 – 1998) – teacher, professor, Corresponding Member (1957), Academician of the USSR Academy of Arts (1964). People’s Artist of the USSR (1974), winner of the USSR State Prize (1978) and two Stalin Prizes third degree (1951, 1952). He did a lot for the revival of the Russian landscape in the post-war Soviet art. In the revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russian avant-garde art, and then in the Soviet art of 1930-1950-ies landscape was not popular. However, after the war, returning from the war artists began to look at the world through different eyes. Gritsai was one of these artists, who preferred the pure landscape in the art study. In addition, Gritsai was an outstanding teacher. He taught and then led a workshop at the Moscow State Institute named after Surikov, headed a commission of the Academy of Arts on the work with young artists.
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Soviet fashion model Valentina Yashina (1930s – 2006)

Soviet fashion model Valentina Yashina was one of the most beautiful models of the USSR in 1950-70s and her success was phenomenal. Blond goddess, Soviet Greta Garbo, fashion icon – so Yashina was described in the foreign press. In the capital’s Fashion House at Kuznetsky Most she worked for almost half a century, and appeared on the podium, even at the age of 65! Surprisingly, compatriots often called her beauty obscene and apparently out of jealousy even tried to blame her in the opposition to society. Many believed that life of Yashina was like a fairy tale. But at the end of this tale, alas, it turned out to be tragic … In her declining years, to survive, she had to work as a cleaner. Yashina got a legacy of more than five million dollars, but in her 70 years of age, she could barely make ends meet in a tiny room in a communal apartment. Ten years ago, the model was found dead in her country house in Kupavna of the Moscow region.
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Soviet Armenian sculptor Nikolai Nikogosyan (born 1918) working on a model of the monument to the poet Vahan Terian. 1986

Works of Soviet Armenian sculptor Nikolai Nikogosyan entered the “golden fund” of Soviet art. They are in the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts of Karelia and other regional museums in Russia, as well as in the State Art gallery of Armenia, in the art museums of former Soviet Union – Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania. Nikolai Nikogosyan – painter, graphic artist, teacher, People’s Artist of the USSR (1982), Winner of USSR State Prize (1977). Corresponding Member (1983) of the USSR Academy of Arts, Academician of Russian Academy of Arts (2001). Nikolai Bagratovich Nikoghosyan was born December 2, 1918, in the village of Shagrar (now Nalbandyan) in Armenia. In 1930-1940-ies N.B.Nikogosyan got an excellent education – first at the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of All-Russian Academy of Arts in Leningrad, and later at the Moscow Art Institute of Surikov (workshop AT Matveyev). Since 1985, he taught at the Faculty of Architecture plastics, since 1998 professor. In 1940, the artist began to participate in exhibitions, in 1942 he joined the USSR Union of Artists. In 1956 he represented the country at the XXVIII International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Venice.
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Soviet Russian artist Tatyana Nazarenko (born June 24, 1944, Moscow, USSR). Self-portrait with her son. Oil. 1977

Soviet Russian artist Tatyana Nazarenko
From the window of her studio – a fabulous view of the golden-domed Moscow with stars, roofs and domes. Depending on the lighting and the time of year, this urban landscape bears different moods: from the intoxicating delight of the beauty of the world in a clear winter morning to viscous melancholy of autumn evening, when the city acquires a sinister silhouette outlines. All these changes of breath, shades of feeling of a big city are recorded with the utmost sincerity in the artist’s paintings. But it is not a landscape, no. Reflection takes place in people’s faces, in their fates, which are disclosed to the canvas in a leisurely scenic narrative. And the city, as something fatal, always visible behind them.
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Hereditary potter S. Goncharov. Grog. 1981. Soviet sculptor Lyudmila Yelchaninova (born 1940, Moscow, USSR)

Soviet sculptor Lyudmila Yelchaninova was born and raised in Moscow. Since childhood, she loved to draw, mold toys, paint, dress up and decorate them. Lyudmila’s mother, seamstress, sew theater costumes, decorated Russian folk clothes with embroidery, and accustomed her daughter to needlework. Maybe these first lessons echoed over time in the work of the artist, in her love for color, adherence to all man-made, hand made good craftsmen. And now in her shop carefully preserved objects of folk life, ancient peasant clothes, arts and crafts. After graduation Yelchaninova moved to Smolensk. Teaching students sculpture and ceramics, she worked hard, took part in the exhibitions, raised a daughter. In 1973 she joined the USSR Union of Artists.
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Painting flowers Soviet artist Boris Shamanov (15 September 1931 – March 2, 2008). Night. Asters. Oil. 1979

Painting flowers Soviet artist Boris Shamanov

Boris Shamanov (15 September 1931 – March 2, 2008) – Russian Soviet painter, graphic artist and teacher, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, member of the St. Petersburg Union of Artists (before 1992 – the Leningrad branch of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR). Already in childhood Boris liked to draw very much, as much as his uncle did. But as many boys of the war time, he, along with his friend, decided to enter the military Nautical School in 1945. But he was not taken because of age restrictions – was not yet 15 years old. A year later, he entered the Mukhina Art and Industrial School, first – department of artistic metal processing, then decorative and monumental painting, where Boris Shamanov demonstrated his talent of a painter. Talking about the artistic tastes, especially in his youth, Boris Ivanovich first called Levitan. In the works of Levitan drew an unmistakable sense of native wildlife, its majestic image of eternity, that attracts and disturbs human.
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Front-line drawings of Soviet artist Vitaly Davydov (1923 – 2007). Member of the Budapest battle Pyotr Ikonnikov. Watercolor. 1945

The war ended, and the front-line drawings of the Soviet artist Vitaly Davydov (1923 – 2007) have been forgotten – twenty years have lain in the old couch, brought to the country house. Then by chance the artist thought of them, put in order. Colleagues advised him to publish some of the drawings, accompanied by text. The book was called “Frontline notebook” (Notes of a soldier) to the 20 th anniversary of Victory.” On the 40th anniversary of Victory was organized the exhibition in Moscow. It exhibited 152 drawings of WWII veteran, artist Vitaly Timofeyevich Davidov, including those presented here. Watercolor depicting Sergeant Pyotr Ikonnikov, almost a boy, but backed by heavy military campaigns, medal “For Courage”, and much quiet dignity in his pose.
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