In the workshop. 1970s. Soviet sculptor Pavel Ivanovich Gusev (July 14, 1917 – July 4, 2010)

Soviet sculptor Pavel Ivanovich Gusev

Born July 14, 1917 (the village of Bornukovo, Nizhny Novgorod region), Pavel Ivanovich Gusev was the same age as the Great October Revolution. The boy grew up in the family of a hereditary blacksmith, from whom he received skills of working with metal and love of creativity. As most of his contemporaries of the time, he began working early. Even as a schoolboy he entered a stone carving workshop, where he studied the work of stone cutter for two years. Shalnov, the Ural master of malachite works noticed the abilities of the boy and tried to develop them. Thanks to him, the art skills of Gusev gradually grew. Meanwhile, in the 1930s, Moscow specialists and artists became interested in the studio and came to Bornukovo. Together with the Ural masters, they created sketches of products, according to which the stone cutters worked.
Fortunately, the Moscow artists noticed the talented young master Pavel Gusev and helped him enter the Moscow Art College of Kalinin. Thus, he began studying sculpture and drawing in the workshops of sculptors B.N. Lange and the bone carver SP Evangulov.
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Soviet Latvian sculptor Teodor Zalkaln 1876-1972

The art of Soviet Latvian sculptor Teodor Zalkaln, Hero of Socialist Labor, member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, People’s Artist of the USSR, belongs to the bright pages of Latvian culture, its truly national values. In one of his speeches the artist said: “I am a sculptor, I have subordinated all my life to the tasks of a sculptor, this was my joy, and the reason for my worries.” As a sculptor I looked at life as an artist trying to understand and convey in my images our Latvian life, in which I see the essence of our people.”
The search for a monumental image, the desire to embody the beauty, strength and integrity of the national character were the basis of the work of Teodor Eduardovich Zalkaln. The images of his mother, who had borne the calamities of the First World War, the monuments built according to the plan of monumental propaganda, and the majestic portraits show that the artist has always understood the life, hopes and aspirations of the people.
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Red Army soldier figure. Work by Soviet Tuvan folk master Dongak Okaanchik 1896-1972. Photo – tuvaonline.ru

Soviet Tuvan folk master Dongak Okaanchik 1896-1972

One of the original Tuvan folk masters, the name of Dongak Okaanchik stands alongside such celebrated carvers and stone-cutters who glorified Tuva far beyond Russia, like Hertec Toybuhaa, Mongush Cherzy, Raisa Arakchaa, Kogel Saaya, and others.
Okaanchik lived a long life (1896-1972). Born in a country that was part of China, he saw the formation of the young state of the People’s Republic of China, and witnessed how a small republic became part of the vast country of the USSR. His works – a sculpture of small form of wood and traditional musical instruments – are well known to serious connoisseurs of applied art in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and other large cities of Russia. And one of the works of the Tuvan master, “Devig” is in the Kunstkammer in St. Petersburg.
In fact, in the 1960s, during the heyday of culture in the Tuva ASSR, his works repeatedly participated at major all-Union exhibitions of Soviet Art in Moscow and Leningrad. At present, the largest collection of works by the master Okaanchik is in the funds of National museum of Tuva.
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The image of Stalin in painting “Triumph of the masses”. 1930s. Soviet artist Georgy Alekseev 1881-1951

Soviet artist Georgy Alekseev
Famous Soviet sculptor, painter and graphic artist, Georgy Dmitrievich Alekseev (1881-1951) was one of the most passionate and talented propagandists of the Marxist-Leninist ideas of the 1920s-1930s. He was not only a witness, but also a living participant of the Russian revolution. Alekseev graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he studied in the workshops of I. Repin, S. Korovin, and N. Kasatkin. In 1907 he became the creator of one of his first busts of Karl Marx, commissioned by the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1924 he became the author of his most famous work – “The Calling Leader”, replicated in hundreds of copies in the squares, railway stations, museums and squares of many cities of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, in the early 1920s he collaborated with V.V. Mayakovsky and M.M. Cheremnykh in the “Windows of Satire ROSTA”. Noteworthy, in 1923 he created the poster “Ultimatum”, mentioned by N. Ostrovsky in the novel “How the Steel Was Tempered”.
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The monument to three times Hero of the Soviet Union, Air Marshal Alexander Pokryshkin on Karl Marx Square in Novosibirsk. Work by Soviet Russian sculptor Mikhail Pereyaslavets (born March 30, 1949 in Moscow, USSR)

Soviet Russian sculptor Mikhail Pereyaslavets
Born March 30, 1949 in Moscow, USSR, Mikhail Vladimirovich is a Soviet and Russian sculptor, teacher, professor, painter of the Grekov studio of military artists since 1976. Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts (1997; Corresponding Member, 1992). People’s Artist of Russia (1995). He is a laureate of the RSFSR State Prize named after I. Repin (1984) and the Lenin Komsomol Prize (1976). The author of many monuments of military-patriotic significance.
One of the sculptures created by Pereyaslavets depicts so-called “Stalin’s falcon”, Stepan Pavlovich Suprun (August 2, 1907 – July 4, 1941) – Soviet test pilot, military pilot fighter and Member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Suprun was the first twice Hero of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War (the second time – posthumously). Killed in an air battle near Vitebsk July 4, 1941.
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Friends. 1950’s. Electroplating, plasticine, pedestal – wood. Work by Soviet sculptor Alexandr Deineka (1999-1969)

Soviet sculptor Alexandr Deineka
In addition to painting, monumental works, mosaics and decorative-applied art, Deineka is a well known as a sculptor. Today, one can not say definitely about the reasons, or the exact time of Deineka’s conversion to sculpture. Except for a brief episode of the first years of his artistic biography, when in 1920 in Kursk, at an emergency meeting of teachers at the Proletarian Art Studio, it was decided that in addition to Deineka’s painting classes, he would lead a course in sculpture. However, there is no evidence that in 1920 – 1930s, the artist showed interest in this art form. In exhibition catalogs, the artist invariably dated his first sculptures in 1939.
In any case, it is interesting to note that in the late 1930s the artist was fond of the idea of ​​three-dimensional space in art, that is, just at a time when the reaction to the appearance of his new monumental works is by no means always positive.
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Young worker. 1937. Bronze. Fragment. Soviet sculptor Viktor Sinaisky (October 21, 1893 – January 27, 1968)

Soviet sculptor Viktor Sinaisky
One of the oldest Soviet sculptors, Vitor Alexandrovich Sinaisky went a long way of an artist. He began it in 1918, actively involved in the implementation of the Leninist plan for monumental propaganda.
Creativity of Sinaisky is diverse. He paid much attention throughout his life to easel and monumental and decorative sculpture, a portrait of a contemporary and work on the monument. Stylistic features of the sculptor Sinaisky – the rigor of the plastic system, based on careful study of nature, the clarity of the artistic design and ease of expression, a deep sense of sculpture and a brilliant technique of performance.
And one more remarkable aspect of the master’s work is teaching. Sinaisky has won the fame of a talented and experienced teacher. With all the passion and sincerity he devoted himself to this occupation, seeing in it no less opportunities than those that are incorporated in the artist’s work.
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