Soviet Ukrainian painter Vladimir Nesterov (born 1932). Listening to space (The Earth listens). 1970. Canvas, oil. Sold at auction for $ 72,063

Soviet Ukrainian painter Vladimir Nesterov was born August 16, 1932 in the city of Kherson. Vladimir Dmitrievich – an artist of social realism, a teacher, a member of the USSR Union of Artists. While studying in the art studio of Kherson Pioneers House, he was awarded a trip to Moscow for the watercolor painting “Duel of Pushkin with Dantes.”
After returning from the capital, the young man was invited to lead an art studio in the House of Folk Art. Within months, the number of visitors to his studio reached seventy.
Later Nesterov graduated from the Kiev Art Institute. His graduate work at the Institute was devoted to one of the most favorite themes in the Soviet Art – Space exploration. Then he created two paintings “The Earth is listening” and “The Astronauts”. He studied all that was available about space exploration, traveled to the Crimean observatory, collected materials. In 1970 he painted “The Earth is listening”, it was on the show in Moscow, later was sold at auction for $ 72,063.
More »

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.
More »

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.
More »

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.
More »

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.
More »

Soviet artist Konstantin Finogenov (1902-1989)

Soviet artist Konstantin Finogenov (1902 – 1989) – Honored Artist of the RSFSR, laureate of USSR State Prize. Winner of the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1949) for a series of drawings “I.V. Stalin during the Great Patriotic War. Professor. During the Great Patriotic War, on the instructions of the General Political Department of the Red Army and the Committee on the Arts of the USSR, he worked on the place of battles near Moscow, the Orel-Kursk Bulge, Stalingrad, the Soviet area of Berlin. As the front-line artist worked in the “Windows of TASS”, the newspaper “Pravda”. He drew the defeated Berlin from the dome of the Reichstag. Works of the Soviet artist Konstantin Finogenov are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Museum of Fine Arts of Pushkin, Volgograd museums, museum in Gorlovka (Donbass), the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the art gallery of the Parliament of India.
More »

Painting by Soviet Russian artist Ivan Kulikov (13 April 1875 – 15 December 1941). Pioneers. Oil. 1929

Portrait Gallery of Pioneers and Komsomol members of the 1920s, created by Soviet Russian artist Ivan Kulikov (13 April 1875 – 15 December 1941) – disciple of the great Repin is the artistic embodiment of the glorious era of the beginning of construction of socialism in the USSR.
Those who at least once visited the Russian Museum, of course, remember the huge painting by Ilya Repin – group portrait – “The ceremonial meeting of the State Council.” In working on this piece to the great artist helped Boris Kustodiev and Ivan Semyonovich Kulikov – his “most significant” disciples, as Stasov called them. From The first creative steps the artist showed the brightness of his pictorial talent. Already becoming academician of painting, Ivan Semenovich talked about his vocation for art: “I loved to paint since childhood, and the guys called me an artist. Art teacher insisted that I was engaged in painting, and even brought me an easel – the tripod.”.
More »