Soviet Art

Children. (Moscow of the 1930s). 1936. Paper, gouache drawing by Soviet painter Alexander Rozhdestvensky (1901-1998)

Soviet painter Alexander Rozhdestvensky belongs to a pleiad of those masters who began their creative career at the dawn of Soviet power, developing the traditions of the Russian realistic art school. With interest the viewers took the work of Rozhdestvensky, shown at personal exhibitions in Moscow. It is noteworthy that the evaluations of the artist’s works, given by specialists and ordinary viewers, coincide completely. The first personal exhibition of this painter took place in 1959, and approximately in ten years, in 1970, the second.
Born April 14, 1901 in Moscow in the family of a pharmacist, Alexander Illarionovich Rozhdestvensky began to paint very early. While studying at the Moscow gymnasium #8, aged ten, Rozhdestvensky began to visit the Tretyakov Gallery. This had a huge impact on him. Here, the future painter carefully examined the paintings of outstanding masters. He admired the national art, and gradually his aesthetic ideas and beliefs began to appear.
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Self-portrait. 1976. Oil, canvas. Soviet Uzbek artist Zhavlon Umarbekov (born in 1946, Tashkent of Uzbek SSR)

Soviet Uzbek artist Zhavlon Umarbekov
Rapidly and swiftly, Zhavlon Umarbekov joined the collective of artists of Uzbekistan. The versatility of interests, energy, creative efficiency, and purposefulness of actions, even appearance and manner of behavior, emphasized his belonging to the generation of artists who came to Soviet art at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. This time is significant not only for the general attention to creative youth, but for the search for new stylistics in art, for new means of expression that evolve towards the classical completeness of images, and objectivity of form. Along with this, there continues a keen interest in the issues of the correlation of national traditions and modernity. In Central Asia, this process was particularly noticeable in connection with the discoveries of Soviet archaeologists who presented the world with the monumental art of Varakhshi, Afrasiab, Pyanjikent with their unique world of poetry, features of color and plastic solutions.
Umarbekov was one of those who caught this process in art, he realized the need for more complex, emotional-figurative disclosure of the phenomena of destiny.
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Kai. 1975. Oil on canvas. Soviet Estonian artist Uno Roosvalt (born 22 August 1941, Tallinn)

Soviet Estonian artist Uno Roosvalt defined his theme in art very early, being a student of the State Art Institute of the Estonian SSR. Born 22 August 1941 in Tallinn, as a child he lived for five years on the islands of Kuusalu. That is where he became attached to the harsh Baltic weather, Estonian farms, their inhabitants, island fishermen, to the inhospitable Estonian nature: the cold sea, rocks, and dunes. And fishermen will later become the heroes of his paintings – their lives, full of risk, dangerous work, and hard life.
In the first work with which Roosvalt participated at the republican exhibition, “Coast” (1967), there are already qualities inherent in his painting in the future. In particular, laconic plot, restrained polychrome painting, and severe courageous intonation.
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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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Soldier’s song. 1954, fragment. Painting by Soviet artist Pyotr Ivanovich Zhigimont (1914-2003)

Soviet artist Pyotr Ivanovich Zhigimont – Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1949), Laureate of the Stalin Prize (1949).
Born in 1914 in Mariupol (now Donetsk region of Ukraine), he studied at the Kharkov State Technical University (1934-1937). After graduation he studied at the Leningrad Art Institute of Ilya Repin (1937-1939). While still a student, Zhigimont took part in exhibitions of Soviet art (since 1938). He also worked in the studio of Mitrofan Grekov (since 1946). And already in 1949, became a member of the USSR Union of Artists. Noteworthy, together with his colleagues, he participated in the restoration of the picturesque panorama “The Battle of Borodino” in Moscow and in the creation of the largest panorama “Battle of Stalingrad” in Volgograd.

Meanwhile, after the collapse of the USSR and hard years of perestroika, in 1993, he emigrated to Germany. There he continued to be active as an artist. Pyotr Ivanovich Zhigimont died in Cologne in 2003.
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Victory! 1945-1948. For this painting Soviet artist Pyotr Aleksandrovich Krivonogov (1910-1967) received Stalin Award

Soviet artist Pyotr Aleksandrovich Krivonogov

Born September 8, 1910 in a family of peasants, Pyotr Aleksandrovich Krivonogov (1910-1967) grew up in severe revolutionary years and passed through all the horrors of the Great Patriotic War. One of the most brilliant Soviet battlesists, he created stunningly realistic pictures – real scenes of battles forever smashing into the memory of the artist – the chronicle of the war years and the great sacrifice of the Soviet people.
In the years of the Civil War, his father was beaten up to death by the sham poles. Mother had to somehow feed the four children, and because of despair, she decided to send Peter to the Sarapul orphanage. In 1925 he was in the children’s reception of the city of Kineshma, Ivanovo region. After graduating from the seven-year school, in 1930 he began studying in the art school at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. After finishing school, Pyotr Krivonogov entered the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of the USSR Academy of Arts. His teachers were prominent Soviet painters K.F. Yuon and graphic artist P.A. Shillingovsky. He graduated from the institute in 1939.
In 1940, Peter Krivonogov became part of the art studio named after M. Grekov.
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Harvest, detail of painting by Soviet Ukrainian artist Tatyana Golembiyevskaya (born 1936)

Soviet Ukrainian artist Tatyana Golembiyevskaya – People’s Artist of Ukraine, Honored Art Worker of the Ukrainian SSR (1966), People’s Artist of the USSR (1986), and Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Arts (1988).
Born November 7, 1936 in Kiev, Tatiana Nikolayevna Golembiyevskaya grew up in a family of artists. In 1962 she graduated from the Kiev State Art Institute, where her teachers were V.Kostetsky, K.Trokhimenko, S.Grigoriev, and I.Shtilman. Member of the Union of Artists of the USSR since 1962, she studied at the Creative Workshops of the cademy of Arts of the USSR in Kiev until 1965. In addition to studying, Golembiyevskays was an active participant of exhibitions of Soviet art – republican (1960), All-Union (1961), and foreign (since 1963).
Author of genre paintings, master of landscape and still life, she also worked in the field of easel painting. Besides, in 1968, Tatyana Golembiyevskaya began working as a teacher at the Kiev Art Institute (1984 – professor).
In 1968 she became a laureate of the Republican Komsomol Prize of Nikolay Ostrovsky.
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