Soviet Art

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Category Archive: Sculpture

Soviet sculptor Vladimir Efimovich Tsigal 1917-2013

The monument to Musa Jalil erected May 1 1966 in Kazan in memory of the Hero of the Soviet Union, laureate of the Lenin Prize, participant in the anti-fascist underground, executed in Nazi prison in 1944. Work by Soviet sculptor Vladimir Efimovich Tsigal

The monument to Musa Jalil erected May 1 1966 in Kazan in memory of the Hero of the Soviet Union, laureate of the Lenin Prize, participant in the anti-fascist underground, executed in Nazi prison in 1944. Work by Soviet sculptor Vladimir Efimovich Tsigal 1917-2013

Soviet sculptor Vladimir Efimovich Tsigal (17 September, 1917- 4 July, 2013) was Academician of the USSR Academy of Arts (1978, Corresponding Member 1964). People’s Artist of the USSR (1978), awarded the Lenin Prize (1984), the Stalin Prize of the First Degree (1950) and the RSFSR State Prize of the Repin (1966). Member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1952.

Born on 17 September 1917 in Odessa, in the 1920s he lived in Penza, where he graduated from high school. In 1937-1942 he studied at the State Art Institute named after VI Surikov in Moscow. Being a graduate student, in 1942 Vladimir volunteered to the front. Until 1944 he served in the Navy as a military artist. Participated in the landing in Novorossiysk and Kerch, as well as in other combat operations of the Black Sea and Baltic fleets. In 1945, the Committee for the Arts sent him with the famous sculptor Kerbel to Berlin. Their task was to build monuments to the soldiers of the Red Army in Berlin, Zeelow, and Kiistrin.
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Soviet Russian sculptor Vladimir Sychev 1917-1995

Interior of Frunzenskaya metro station, St. Petersburg (Leningrad) Soviet Russian sculptor Vladimir Sychev 1917-1995

Interior of Frunzenskaya metro station, St. Petersburg (Leningrad). Soviet Russian sculptor Vladimir Sychev (1917-1995)

Soviet Russian sculptor Vladimir Sychev

The station, opened on April 29, 1961, was named in honor of the revolutionary and Soviet state and military figure Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze. Decorated with a bas-relief of aluminum and red smalt the panel depicts Mikhail Frunze on horseback, surrounded by Red Army soldiers and against the backdrop of battle banners. This is a remarkable work of the Soviet sculptor, member of the USSR Union of Artists (1948) Vladimir Sychev.
Born in 1917 in Ukraine, Vladimir Isakovich Sychev from an early age showed interest in art. In 1940, after the Odessa Art School, Sychev moved to Leningrad, where he entered the All-Russian Academy of Arts, and studied in the studio of the outstanding Soviet artist A.T. Matveyev. In 1941, after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, he took part in defense works, and was a fighter of the Moscow Military District. In 1942, all students and faculty of the Academy of Arts evacuated to Samarkand. However, the heaviest blockade winter influenced all the further work of Vladimir Sychev.
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Soviet sculptor Dmitry Ryabichev 1926-1995

Soviet sculptor Dmitry Ryabichev in his workshop. 1980s

Soviet sculptor Dmitry Ryabichev in his workshop. 1980s

Soviet sculptor Dmitry Ryabichev (1926-1995) was Veteran of the Great Patriotic War, member of the USSR Union of artists (1954), People’s Artist of the RSFSR, laureate of the State Prize of the USSR, laureate of the UNESCO Prize, and laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize. Famous Russian sculptor – author of monuments, portraits, monumental compositions, and sculptural and architectural ensembles in Russia and in the world.
During the period of 1946 – 1954 he studied at the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute, Faculty of Architecture, then at the Moscow Art and Industrial School, the Faculty of Sculpture. One of the brightest representatives of modernity, Dmitry Ryabichev entered art in the mid-sixties, just at the time when Soviet masters gained special freedom of expression, when bright trends in all kinds of art appeared.
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Soviet Russian sculptor Vladimir Domogatsky

Soviet Russian sculptor Vladimir Domogatsky (1876 - 1939)

Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. Bas-relief (1917). Soviet Russian sculptor Vladimir Domogatsky (1876 – 1939)

Soviet Russian sculptor Vladimir Domogatsky (1876 – 1939) – the teacher, professor of Moscow State Art Institute (since 1937), Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1937). Born into the family of a wealthy landowner, a doctor, he spent his childhood in Switzerland. In 1897-1902 he studied law at Moscow University and took private lessons in sculpture from SM Volnukhin, and later, the painter S.V. Ivanov.
At the beginning of the 20th century he visited Paris and Italy several times, where he studied European art. A special influence on his work had the sculptors Paolo Trubetskoy and Rodin. In 1907 in Paris he studied the technique of working in marble.
After returning to Russia in 1908-1910 – he taught at the Stroganov School in Moscow. Since 1937 – Professor of the Moscow Institute of Fine Arts, Dean of the Faculty of Sculpture. Among his students were prominent Soviet sculptors Lev Kerbel, Vladimir Tsigal, and D. Mitlyansky. Meanwhile, he worked in genre of animalistic and portrait sculpture.
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Soviet sculptor-ceramist Natalya Danko 1892-1942

Soviet sculptor-ceramist Natalya Danko 1892-1942. Worker embroidering Soviet Red banner

Worker embroidering Soviet Red banner. Soviet sculptor-ceramist Natalya Danko (1892-1942)

Soviet sculptor-ceramist Natalya Danko (1892-1942) entered the history of Soviet propaganda porcelain as one of the most remarkable sculptors. For twenty-five years of creative work she has created more than three hundred figures and compositions. In particular, thematic sculptures, satirical, portrait and decorative, not counting options made in bronze, terracotta, wax and earthenware. Also, Natalia was one of the first Soviet sculptors to use porcelain in architecture. Noteworthy are 14 bas-reliefs on the theme “Dances of the Peoples of the USSR” for the metro station “Sverdlov Square”. In addition, under her leadership, a team of sculptors and artists of Leningrad porcelain factory performed porcelain bas-reliefs for the Khimki river station in Moscow (1937-1938).
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Soviet Russian sculptor Sarra Lebedeva 1892-1967

Soviet Russian sculptor Sarra Lebedeva 1892-1967

Soviet Russian sculptor Sarra Lebedeva (23 December 1892 – 7 March 1967)

Soviet Russian sculptor Sarra Lebedeva
Bright representative of Soviet art, Sarra Lebedeva was an Honored Artist of Russia (1945), Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Arts (1958), and Member of the USSR Union of Artists. Master of portrait sculpture, she is the author of numerous sculptural portraits of public figures, the country’s heroes, artists and writers.
Born Sarra Dmitrievna Darmolatova 23 December 1892 in St. Petersburg, she was the daughter of wealthy official and nobleman. Besides, her elder sister was a poet and translator Anna Radlova. Sarra Lebedeva studied at the School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, workshops of Mikhail Bernstein and Leonid Sherwood (1910-1914), and also worked in the sculpture studio of Vasily Kuznetsov (1914).
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Soviet Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Malyshkin

Soviet sculptor Vyacheslav Malyshkin. Window. Bronze. 1984

Window. Bronze. 1984. Soviet sculptor Vyacheslav Malyshkin

Soviet Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Malyshkin
Vyacheslav Malyshkin graduated from Moscow State Art Institute named after Surikov, the Faculty of Sculpture. Immediately after graduation the young artist began to work on his own, and became a member of the USSR Union of Artists. In addition, he began teaching. In particular, for many years has been teaching at a children’s art studio in the Sverdlovsk district of Moscow. Demanding from the young pupils serious attitude to work, Malyshkin himself is a hard working and responsible. For a whole year he can create no more than one or two sculptures. As before, the direct implementation of the plan anticipates the full-scale laborious work with pencil and paper. As a result, his works decorate the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery.
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