The Seagull (Portrait of Valentina Tereshkova, first woman – cosmonaut). Oil on canvas. 1964. Painting by Soviet artist Amir Nuriakhmetovich Mazitov (1928-1992)

Soviet artist Amir Nuriakhmetovich Mazitov (1928-1992) – Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1970), laureate of the Leninist Komsomol of the RSFSR award, and member of the USSR Union of artists (1958). Born in 1928 in the village of Bondyuga of the Tatar ASSR, he graduated from the Kazan Art College (1949). In 1950-1955 studied at the Moscow Art Institute of VI Surikov. After graduation, he taught at the Yaroslavl Art College (1955-1979).
In the picture “The Seagull” he depicted our famous countrywoman Valentina Tereshkova. He painted this portrait in 1964, a year after Tereshkova’s flight into space. Here the “Seagull” appears before us at that time, when she was still a sports paratrooper of the Yaroslavl Air Club. After another jump, Valentina looks dreamily into the heavenly distance. Young artist Amir Mazitov was able to convey the “spirit of the times”, creating an image filled with lyrical and romantic intonations. Meanwhile, he was one of the first to create on the canvas the image of the first woman-cosmonaut.
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Soviet artist Vilgelmina Dmitriyevna Zazerskaya (born 17 May 1927 in Leningrad, USSR)

Soviet artist Vilgelmina Dmitriyevna Zazerskaya – honored art worker and laureate of the State Prize of the Moldavian SSR. Member of the Union of Artists of Russia, she is a participant of republican, all-Union and international exhibitions of Soviet Art, including 20 solo exhibitions.
Born in 1927 in Leningrad, in 1954 she graduated from the Leningrad Higher Art and Industrial College of Vera Mukhina. Author of thematic paintings, portraits, and landscapes, Zazerskaya is a temperamental artist, enthusiastic about life and people. The subjects of her work are different – “Fishermen”, “Builders”, “Tale of the Sons of Moldova”, triptych “Light of Ilyich”, “Portrait of actress M. Bieshu”.
Today, 90 year-old artist lives and works in St. Petersburg.
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Right side of the tryptich ‘Happinness of Ioanah’. 1967. Oil, canvas. Soviet Moldavian artist Igor Vieru (December 23, 1923 – May 24, 1988)

Soviet Moldavian artist Igor Vieru
Honored Art Worker of the Moldavian SSR, Igor Vieru belongs to the middle generation of Soviet Moldovan artists, who laid the foundations for new and modern trends in Moldovan painting, corresponding to modern reality. His work has about 70 paintings and 12 collections of book illustrations.
Born in 1923 in the village of Chernolevka (Moldavia, USSR), Igor Dmitrievich Vieru studied at the Republican Art College in Kishinev from 1946 to 1949.
Meanwhile, the traditions of folk decorative art greatly influenced the formation of the artist’s work. In particular, in the triptych “Happinness of Ioanah” (1967), the master conducts poetic narrative of his contemporaries. Simple and strong, they seemed to come from a folk song. The artist painted them whole and bright, finding for this joyful colors and melodic lines. In harmony and elegant festivity of the picture, the artist embodied idea of ​​happiness and joy of a man on his native land.
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“In the wagon” (the compartment of the train). 1966-1967. Canvas, oil. The State Museum of Oriental Art. Painting by Soviet Armenian artist Minas Avetisyan (1928-1975)

Soviet Armenian artist Minas Avetisyan
Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR, Minas Karapetovich Avetisyan was born 20 July 1928 in the village of Jajur of the Armenian SSR. He studied at the Yerevan Art School named after F.Terlemezyan (1947-1952) and Yerevan Art and Theater Institute (1952-1954). In 1960 he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of I.E. Repin. Since 1960 he lived in Yerevan. He is the author of paintings, landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. In the color compositions of Avetisyan the world appears bright and tense, the objective forms in it sometimes turn into an expression of the powerful energy of colorful planes. But the artist can organize this color energy in such a way that the sound of the image conceived by him convince the viewer. The world transformed by the artist can carry away with joy, blind with the glint of the sun, and fascinate with the silence of a damp night.
The painting “In the wagon” (1966-1967) does not contain a specific story and distinct characteristics of the characters. Representing his characters, the author does not give the viewer any literary plotting of the plot. He creates a special atmosphere full of a sense of expectation, a characteristic feeling that every person experiences on the road.
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Portrait of Alexandr Matveyevich Alexandrov. 1966. Oil on canvas. Soviet artist Igor Aleksandrovich Popov (1927-1999)

Soviet artist Igor Aleksandrovich Popov
Honored Artist of the RSFSR, Igor Aleksandrovich Popov was born in 1927 in Kharkov. In 1951 he graduated from the Moscow State Art Institute named after VI Surikov, the workshop of S.V. Gerasimov. He lived and worked in Moscow, and was a chairman of the board of the Moscow organization of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR.
The portrait of Aleksandrov Alexander Martynovich (1966) shows the figurative characterization of the hero, a reasonable, calm, confident man. And the composition itself emphasizes his human significance and strength – a large, as close to the viewer as possible, as if the picture space is not enough for this man. Thick, powerful paints also help to reveal the uniqueness and integrity of his nature.
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The magician. 1965. Oil on canvas. Yerevan. Painting by Soviet Armenian artist Alexander Bazhbeuk Melikyan (1891—1966)

Soviet Armenian artist Alexander Bazhbeuk Melikyan
The small canvas “The magician” (1965) clearly manifests the coloristic mastery of the artist, his special festive attitude. Like a fairy, a young girl is preparing some kind of mysterious transformation. Femininity and grace are not only in the figure of the magician, but in the painting itself – in the noble harmony of the golden and red tones of the attire, in the overflows and flashes of the background.
Born in 1891 in Tiflis, Alexander Aleksandrovich Bazhbeuk-Malikyan died in 1966 in the same place. From 1904 to 1910 he studied at the school of painting and sculpture of the Caucasian Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Tiflis. Then in the studio of VN Mashkov in Moscow (1910 – 1911) and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Petersburg (1911-1913). The author of genre paintings, portraits, and landscapes, Melikyan found his subject early, which remained unchanged in all his further work. He sings of female beauty in portraits, circus scenes, in numerous “bathers”, “naked”, in compositions that do not have a certain plot (“Optical illusion”, “At the table with a dog”, “Four figures”). All these works each time in a new way discover the world of pure plastics and perfection.
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Hiroshima. 1965. Oil on canvas. The State Art Museum of Estonia. Tallinn. Painting by Soviet Estonian artist Evald Okas (28 November 1915 – 30 April 2011)

Soviet Estonian artist Evald Okas – People’s Artist of the USSR, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, and Honorary Member of the Florence Academy of Arts.
In the painting “Hiroshima” (1965), figures of people, shimmering silhouettes appear on a restless, hostile background. They seem charred in the colorful fire. A bright glow breaks from the center of the canvas, emerges through the rigid contours of the figures. All this fills the picture with mournful drama, and sounds like a formidable warning.
Born in 1915 in Revheim (now Tallinn), in 1941 Evald Karlovich Okas graduated from the Faculty of Painting of the Tallinn State College of Applied Arts. First time he participated in exhibition of Soviet Art in 1939. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 he was in the Soviet Army and served in a team of Estonian artists in Yaroslavl. Since 1944 he taught at the Art Institute of the Estonian SSR and Tallinn (since 1954 – professor).
Okas is the author of thematic paintings, portraits, and landscapes. The artist’s canvases store his immeasurable excitement in the face of large and small phenomena and events of the present day, interest in fates and people’s characters. Among his major works – “Residents of the Coast, Fishermen”, “Plant Construction”, “Horsemen”, “Burning Tiger”, “Estonian Girls”, and more.
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