Portrait of a rural teacher RS Dyakonova. 1969, marble. Soviet Yakut sculptor Pyotr Zakharov

Soviet Yakut sculptor Pyotr Zakharov was born in 1933 in Kobyayskiy district of Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the USSR. In 1955, he graduated from the Yakut art school, and in 1969 – the sculptural faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Ilya Repin, where he studied in the studio of MA Kerzin. Pyotr Zakharov – Member of the Union of Artists since 1970. Pyotr Zakharov belongs to the older generation of the Yakut sculptors whose work has played an important role in the development of the fine arts of Yakutia. A man of boundless energy, perseverance and performance, the artist has created a large number of monumental and easel paintings, imbued with a high sense of civic duty and heroism. In the genre of portrait sculpture he embodied images of historical figures and contemporaries – teachers, writers, scientists, and representatives of creative intelligentsia.
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Soviet sculptor Pavel Turayev. Creativity. Bronze. 1989

Soviet sculptor Pavel Turayev belongs to a generation of artists, who actively began his artistic life in the 1980s. He was born in 1955 in Moscow. In 1979 he graduated from the Moscow State Academic Art Institute of Surikov, workshop of greatest masters of Soviet sculpture N.V. Tomsky and M.F. Baburin. As a student, he began to participate in art exhibitions. At the All-Union Exhibition of 1979 he enjoyed a real success, the work of the young sculptor was awarded Diploma of the USSR Academy of Arts. Since that time, Pavel performs a variety of orders in Moscow and other Russian cities, working under contracts of youth committees and the Academy of Arts of the USSR Union of Artists. Since 1983 Turayev has been a member of the Artists’ Union of the USSR, member of Union of Russian Artists, Moscow Union of Artists and the Association of Moscow Sculptors.
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Soviet Kirghiz sculptor Turgunbai Sadykov working on the statue ‘Liberty’

Soviet Kirghiz sculptor Turgunbai Sadykov – Member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1973), winner of the Lenin Prize (1980), Corresponding Member (1979), USSR Academy of Arts, academician (1988), People’s Artist of the Kirghiz SSR and the USSR (1986), Hero of Socialist Labor (1991), rector of the National Academy of Arts of the Kirghiz Republic (4 October 2010), Hero of Kyrgyzstan (1997). From 1985 to 1990 he was a Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Kirghiz SSR. Turgunbai Sadykov was born November 4, 1935 in the village of Govsuvar, Osh oblast, Kirghiz SSR. From an early age he was lucky for kind and sensitive teachers. The first school teacher noticed and always encouraged the talent of Sadykov. He was constantly busy with painting, sculpture, carving in a boarding school, where he was after his mother’s death …
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Glorification of labor in Soviet art. Yuri Mikhailovich Neprintsev (August 15, 1909 – October 20, 1996). Metro builders – drifters, 1959

Glorification of labor in Soviet art
Any work in the Soviet times was held in high esteem, and proletarian enjoyed not less respect than office worker. To be a worker was beneficial, prestige and promising in the USSR. Without workers – turners, millers, welders – Soviet production would not have reached such high results. It is the working class of the Soviet Union kept the industry. Labor heroes were at the same level as movie stars, if not higher. They were often invited to television programs, interviewed, their portraits decorated magazine covers, about them were filmed documentaries and feature films. Not surprisingly, the theme of workers has been widely reflected in the works of famous artists, and to draw the heroes of socialist labor was an honorable thing.
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Soviet monumental propaganda. Youzas Mikenas (1901-1964). The first swallows. 1964. Gypsum

Soviet monumental propaganda played an important role in the ideological and aesthetic education of the people. For the sculpture “First Swallows” Soviet Lithuanian sculptor Youzas Mikenas (1901 – 1964) was People’s Artist of the USSR (1961), winner of the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1947), Order of Lenin (1954), member of the Communist party of the Soviet Union since 1952. “First Swallows” became the last sculpture of the artist, for which he was awarded the State Prize of the Lithuanian SSR in 1966, posthumously. The sculpture was exhibited at the Expo 67 World’s Fair in Montreal (Canada). Enhanced version of the sculpture is cast in bronze and in 1987 set near the National Gallery in Vilnius.
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The sculptural group ‘partisans’ in the lobby of the metro station Partizanskaya, Moscow closeup. Soviet sculptor Matvey Manizer (1891-1966)

Works by Soviet sculptor Matvey Manizer (1891-1966) are well known to millions of people visiting Moscow. Frontier guard with a dog, woman with chicken, a young worker with a gear wheel, a revolutionary sailor, and dozens of other sculptures decorate the most famous Metro station “Revolution Square”. Soviet sculptor Matvey Manizer created them during 1936-1939. Matvey Manizer (1891-1966) – People’s Artist of the USSR (1958), Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Arts (1947-1966), the winner of three Stalin Prizes (1941, 1943, 1950). He created a number of works that have become classics of socialist realism. During the Great Patriotic War, in 1943 he donated the awarded Stalin Prize (the sum of 100 000 rubles) to the defense Fund. Soviet sculptor Matvey Manizer was the author of Stalin’s death mask.
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Sitting ballerina. Bronze. 1971. Soviet sculptor Angelina Filippova

The creative manner of the Soviet sculptor Angelina Filippova (1923-1986) is characterized by an excellent ownership of the form, understanding of the expressive possibilities of the material, sense of composition. The ability to successfully and rhythmically organize a composition space appeared in a series of works devoted to the ballet: “Sitting ballerina”, “Russian Ballet School”, “The Ballerinas”, “Holiday”, “Debutante,” “Ballet” and others. Since 1960, Filippova began working with great enthusiasm in the most interesting area of ​​plastics – medal art in which she showed great ingenuity and subtlety of composition. The first medal, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the death of Bagration, was followed by other works. Her medal gallery consists of bronze images of Beethoven, Rafael, Schiller, Stepan Razin, Dargomyzhsky, Magellan and others. Filippova was a constant participant of art exhibitions. Many of her works were awarded diplomas and certificates, and the sculptor herself – the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
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