Soviet Art

Perestroika. Poster artist O. Ulanov. Soviet social poster of Perestroika time

Soviet social poster of Perestroika time
In the period of social change, there is a growing need to create generalized, intelligible and at the same time profound in content symbols. In fact, Perestroika proclaimed a new way of thinking. Accordingly, the content of the posters has changed a lot. Meanwhile, the head of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev himself introduced a lot of neologisms. In particular, “glasnost”, “acceleration”, “democracy”, and “perestroika” itself. It was these words that appeared on most posters. However, in the majority the form of a poster has remained former. For example, an excess of red color, workers with happy courageous faces, patterns of sickles and hammers. Thus, the posters of the perestroika demonstrate to us a kind of transitional form of visual agitation – from the Soviet to the modern Russian.
However, the ideas of that troubled time are condemned by most modern people now. And the very time of perestroika with its leaders people now consider a time of betrayal and destruction.
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Generous Earth. 1976. Painting by Soviet Russian artist Georgy Ivanovich Popov (member of the USSR Union of Artists, born 15 September 1939)

Soviet Russian artist Georgy Ivanovich Popov
The peak of popularity of talented artist Georgy (George) Popov in the Soviet Union fell on the 1970 – 1980s. In particular, his works became participants of numerous personal and group exhibitions in museums of the USSR and abroad. For example, his famous still-life “Generous Earth” (Vologda Regional Picture Gallery), which appeared in a variety of publications, became a textbook. In fact, the painting became a kind of symbol of the entire Vologda region. Nowadays, reproductions of this picture are in the school textbooks of the series “Origins”. Interestingly, Georgy Popov is a self-taught artist, as he did not finish any art school.
However, Georgiy Ivanovich began his creative life as a poet. Once, Russian poet Nikolai Rubtsov, after reading his “Poem of Love,” said: “Talentedly written!”
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Geologists, 1963 (diploma work). Oil on canvas. Painting by Soviet Russian artist Oleg Gadalov (29 August 1935 – 11 June 2016)

Soviet Russian artist Oleg Gadalov

Born 29 August 1935 in the city of Ordzhonikidze, Chechen-Ingush autonomous region, Oleg Sergeevich Gadalov belonged to the Gadalov family, one of the most famous merchant families in the Yenisei province of Siberia. Aged 14 the boy entered the Central Art School at the Academy of Arts of the USSR. After graduation from the art school, in 1956, he entered the painting faculty of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. I.E. Repin of the USSR Art Academy. There he studied in the workshop of a prominent Soviet artist Yuri Neprintsev (1956-1963). Created by Oleg Gadalov diploma painting “Geologists” received an excellent evaluation. In particular, awarded the Diploma of the first degree at the All-Russian exhibition of diploma papers in Moscow.
Member of the USSR Union of Artists (since the 1960s), he was a permanent participant of numerous exhibitions of Soviet art. In the period of 1973-1977 he worked in the studio of the seamen of the Navy at the Central Naval Museum in Leningrad. The artist visited the Barents Sea, the city of Severomorsk, and even participated in a hike to Italy on the training ship “Smolny.” The result of the missions were sketches, created on the basis of direct observations.
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Red twilight. 1969. Painting by Soviet artist Boris Valentinovich Shcherbakov 1916-1995

Soviet artist Boris Valentinovich Shcherbakov – representative of socialist realism. People’s Artist of the USSR (1986), he was the winner of the Stalin Prize of the third degree (1952).
Known mainly as a landscape painter, Shcherbakov worked in the genre of historical painting, portrait, and still life. Participated in exhibitions since 1939. He received the last Stalin Prize together with a group of artists for the painting “Meeting of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.” Also, he was the Corresponding Member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1973).
Born March 25 (April 7) in 1916 in Petrograd, Boris Valentinovich Shcherbakov grew up in the family of the artist VS Shcherbakov, a pupil of Ilya Repin. In 1933 he entered the All-Russian Academy of Arts, from which he successfully graduated in 1939. He studied in the workshops of I. Brodsky, V. Yakovlev, and P. Shukhmin.
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Detail. “Arrival to the fleet of the first Komsomol replenishment in 1922”. 1932. Painting by Soviet Russian artist Ivan Georgievich Drozdov (22 August 1880 – 26 November 1939)

Soviet Russian artist Ivan Georgievich Drozdov
Born August 22, 1880 in the village of Vvedenskoe, Moscow Province, Ivan Georgievich Drozdov – Russian painter, and artist of decorative and applied art. Drozdov painted portraits, landscapes, and everyday scenes. After 1917 he created paintings on the themes of revolutionary history and Soviet life. Member of the Union of Artists (1918), the Association of Artists (1916, 1922), the Society of Artists of AI Kuindzhi (1917-27, with interruptions), Association of Artists of revolutionary Russia (1923-29, in 1924-26 – chairman of the Leningrad branch). Ivan Georgievich Drozdov became the member of the Union of Artists of the USSR in 1932.
He received his original art education in the 1890’s in the icon painting workshop of M. Molov and the Moscow art school of A.P. Bolshakov. Besides, Drozdov studied in Penza art college, workshop of KA Savitsky (1900-1904). In addition, he studied at the Higher Art School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, workshops of famous Russian artists VE Makovsky, IE Repin, and VE Savinsky (1904-1910).
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Hourglass. 1987. Soviet theater artist Pyotr Alekseyevich Belov (October 17, 1929 – January 30, 1988)

Soviet theater artist Pyotr Alekseyevich Belov

Since the beginning of perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has become fashionable to scold the Soviet past in newspapers, from television screens, theater scenes and paintings of artists. The wave of “denunciation and condemnation” swept over Pyotr Alekseyevich Belov as well. So, according to his friends, he seemed to burst out of creating, and one by one began to appear canvases – small in size, but grandiose in their philosophical content and fullness of thought”. However, it is easy to see that all of the artist’s paintings, which metaphorically portrayed Stalin’s repressions, he created in the period 1985-1988. In total, there were 23 paintings in the “anti-Stalin cycle. Of course, they were up to date, on the wave of popularity and used as illustrations to anti-soviet and anti-Stalin articles. Interestingly, in the early 1990s, took place the premiere of the American film “Stalin” in Moscow. The film began with a panorama of the works of Pyotr Alekseyevich Belov.
Meanwhile, Pyotr Alekseyevich Belov (October 17, 1929 – January 30, 1988), Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1978), member of the USSR Union of artists (1974-1988) was mainly a theater artist.
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Detail of Decorative figure. The gardener. 1975. Chamotte, salt, glaze. Directorate of exhibitions of the Union of Artists of the USSR. Soviet Russian ceramic artist Mikhail Kopylkov

Soviet Russian ceramic artist Mikhail Kopylkov
Born in 1946 in Leningrad, Mikhail Kopylkov graduated from Leningrad Higher Art and Industrial School named after Vera Mukhina (1969). He joined the USSR Union of Artists in 1975.
Annual exhibitions “One Composition” were of great importance for the history of Soviet Leningrad ceramics, the first of which took place in 1977. According to the charter, the artist could put out only one work, which he chooses himself. A month later, a large exposition “Ceramics of Leningrad” became the first serious review of Leningrad ceramics in the last five years. Criticism rated it as one of the most interesting phenomena in decorative art. The notion of “school of Leningrad ceramics” appeared.
Meanwhile, since the beginning of the 1970s, a group of young artists-ceramists, graduates of the Leningrad Higher Art and Industrial School has been actively working in the city on the Neva. In particular, A. Zadorin, N. Savinova, V. Gorislavtsev, V. Tsyvin, L. Solodkov, N. Gushchina, O. Nekrasov-Karateeva and others. Among them one of the brightest figures was Mikhail Kopylkov.
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