Soviet Art

Hero of Socialist Labor, Stalin Prize winner (1942, 1946, 1948, 1951), the People’s Artist of the USSR (1949), Soviet actress Vera Petrovna Maretskaya (31 July 1906 – 17 August 1978)

Soviet actress Vera Petrovna Maretskaya

For real actresses there is no age, as if there is no flow of days. They are always dazzling, always young, always full of fire, charm, fervor, life, such a thing, speaking in Gogol’s language, “damn it”, which burns in the blood, excites, beckons hearts.
And all this more than anyone else relates to Soviet actress Vera Petrovna Maretskaya. The beautiful woman of Soviet theater, combined the rare natural data and the almost cybernetic (the age of the scientific and technological revolution) technique, the features of a national character and the internationalism. She started at the Studio School at the Theater named after Evgeny Vakhtangov, having learned the harmonious sharpness of the form, understanding the theater as a hot joy, as a generous, noble storyteller telling the truth. It was always fun to look at Vera Petrovna Maretskaya, because she herself had never been boring, dull, upset and confused.
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Chinese and Soviet workers under the banners with Marx-Lenin. Soviet Ukrainian graphic artist Vasily Kasiyan (1 January 1896 – 24 June 1976)

Soviet Ukrainian graphic artist Vasily Kasiyan

Awarded honorary titles and distinctions of the Soviet state, about Kasiyan, published many books, albums, and art articles. With high dignity he carried the people’s trust: three times in a row – elected to the Supreme Council of Ukraine. The art of Kasiyan is a world of exciting images, seen in life and inspired by the historical past, books by Taras Shevchenko and Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka and Olga Kobylianska. Images of the past, images of the Soviet era … In the work of Kasiyan lives a memory of the past of Ukraine, and the life-affirming spirit of the Soviet days.
Soviet Ukrainian graphic artist Vasily Kasiyan said: “Creative inspiration feeds on vital, earthly sources, it does not fall from heaven at all. Only during intense, tireless work does inspiration appear as a result of the development of the conceived business.” According to him, the basis of inspiration is, first of all, the artist’s connection with life, with the people.
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Amedeo Modigliani in the cafe Rotonda. Painting by Soviet Georgian artist Lado Gudiashvili (18 March 1896 – 20 July 1980)

Soviet Georgian artist Lado Gudiashvili

– A lot of sun … Since the morning he’s running away from it. The sun prevents the artist. Exaggerating colors, deceives the eye. But all his art is full of the sun, and he can not do without the sun.
Lado Gudiashvili, People’s Artist of the USSR, laureate of the Rustaveli Prize has lived long life with convenient, well-established concepts. Even with his youthful appearance, slender, with vivacious eyes and greed for work, this eighty-year-old man claimed the favorite idea that wisdom is the ability and in his old age to maintain the immediacy of the perception of the world.
Meanwhile, back in the 1920s, he appeared in Paris, this “mecca” of the artistic world, this capricious sea, which absorbed more than one talent. The young artist stayed true to himself even after the meeting with the eminent maestros. And after the noisy coronation and the abundance of artistic trends, the bohemian life of creative youth, who brought their claims to Paris and bury them there.
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Minimalistic landscape, Leningrad, Views of the City (1953). Soviet graphic artist Gennady Dmitrievich Yepifanov (4 August 1900 – 4 September 1985)

Soviet graphic artist Gennady Dmitrievich Yepifanov
Born August 4, 1900 in Rostov the Great of Yaroslavl Province, future graphic artist illustrator Gennady Dmitrievich Yepifanov grew in the family of a bookbinder of the local printing house. Interestingly, aged 21, Gennady Yepifanov taught singing at the Rostov Gymnasium (1921-1922). In 1923 he entered the Yaroslavl Art College and at the same time, worked at the Rostov Museum of Antiquities (1922-1924). After graduation from the art school in 1925, he studied at the Leningrad Institute of Art and Technology. At first, it was the fine art workshop of Konstantin Petrov-Vodkin, and then the graphic faculty of VD Zamirailo, Dmitry Mitrokhin, Vladimir Konashevich, YS. Kruglikova, and PA Shillingovsky. Under the guidance of Konashevich, he completed his thesis work – illustrations for children’s tales of S.Ya. Marshak, awarded the title of graphic artist.
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Wedding day. 1975. Oil on canvas. Painting Soviet artist Pyotr Antonovich Yablonovsky (25 July 1910 – 23 November 1984)

Soviet artist Pyotr Antonovich Yablonovsky
Born 25 July 1910 in the village of Khartsyzsk, Donskoi Voivodship of Russian Empire, Yablonovsky became known as a Soviet Ukrainian artist, a representative of the Soviet school of socialist realism. In 1941 he graduated from the Kiev Art Institute, where he studied at the workshops of Soviet artists F. Krichevsky, M. Sharonov and S. Grigoriev. After graduation, like many peers of that time, he went to the front. After the end of the war he participated in exhibitions of Soviet art and soon became a member of the USSR Union of Artists.
Meanwhile, the main themes of the artist were the heroic days of Soviet power, military themes and heroes, in particular, Vasily Chapaev, the hero of the civil war. The artist also created landscapes and genre paintings. One of the most talented paintings of the artist “Svyatoshino. An experimental fish breeding station “(1949), is in the regional art museum of Lugansk.
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Winter landscape behind the window. Painting by Soviet Russian artist Vyacheslav Tokarev (July 26, 1917 – April 22, 2001)

Soviet Russian artist Vyacheslav Tokarev
Born July 26, 1917 in Bogoroditsk of Tula province, Vyacheslav Tokarev was the same age as the Great October socialist revolution. The boy grew up in Moscow, as his family moved there soon after his birth. Aged 17, he entered the Ryazan Art College, where he studied in the workshop of Y.Ya.Kalinichenko (1934-1938). And the next year he entered the painting faculty of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of the All-Russian Academy of Arts (workshop of Professor A.A. Osmyorkin). However, forced to interrupt studying because of the Great Patriotic War, in 1941 he became a rifleman of the 576 rifle division of the Leningrad Front. Demobilized in connection with the wound, in 1943 he returned to study at the institute, where he studied in the workshop of Professor Avilov. Tokarev graduated from the institute in 1948 with the diploma painting “Kovpak”, and the same year he became a member of the Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists (1948).
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Soldiers. 1976. Painting by Soviet artist Gennady Ivanovich Prokopinsky (1921-1979)

Soviet artist Gennady Ivanovich Prokopinsky
Born July 26, 1921 in the village of Staronizhesteblyevskaya (Krasnodar Territory), Gennady Prokopinsky lived and worked in Moscow. His first art education began in 1939-1940 at the Moscow Regional Art College in memory of 1905. Since 1940 he worked in the Studio of Military Artists of Mitrofan Grekov. Studio of military artists named after M.B. Grekov, created in 1934, was a unique creative team of military artists. The first generation of Greeks became not only singers of the military past, but also chroniclers of brutal military trials of the Great Patriotic War. Among these military artists was Gennady Prokopinsky, who was on various fronts and finished the war in Berlin. The author of works of monumental art and a series of easel paintings on a military-patriotic theme, he began to take part in art exhibitions of Soviet art since 1942. Veteran of World War II, awarded with medals “For Military Merit” and “For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”
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