Soviet Art

Before the thunderstorm. 1960. Fragment. Soviet artist Leonid Andreyevich Fokin (July 9, 1930 – 1985)

Soviet artist Leonid Andreyevich Fokin

Born July 9, 1930 in Pavlograd, Dnepropetrovsk region, Ukrainian SSR, Leonid Andreevich Fokin studied at the Kishinev Art College. And then followed six years of studying at the Faculty of Painting of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Ilya Repin of Academy of Art of the USSR (1950-56). His teachers were prominent Soviet artists A. Debler, E. Tabakova, A. Mylnikov, and V. Anisovich. He graduated from the workshop of Professor V.M. Oreshnikov, the diploma painting – “In the Evening”.
The professionalism that he acquired, having passed all the stages of the Repin school, organically combined with his natural talent. A virtuosic draftsman and sensitive colorist, Leonid Fokin managed to create energetically powerful and simultaneously lyrically filled works, which, in addition to undoubted artistic and visual merits, distinguish a sense of the accuracy of the nature of time and place.
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To the son for help. 1957. Soviet Russian artist Alexandr Burak (July 10, 1921 – April 29, 1997)

Soviet Russian artist Alexandr Burak (July 10, 1921 – April 29, 1997) – Ural painter, Professor of the Sverdlovsk Architectural Institute (1968-1989). Member of the USSR Union of Artists (1951) and Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1964). A real “singer of the Urals”, the artist created a whole series of epic, lyrical and industrial landscapes. Working on the Ural landscapes, he seemed to dissolve into a majestic nature, merged with it, and it confidently revealed to him the secrets of the unique combination of colors. Also widely known as a master of genre painting, he raised the importance of the domestic genre in the period when it was in a certain decline. In the genre picture, Alexander Filippovich showed himself as a subtle psychologist.
Born July 10, 1921 in the village of Efremovka in the Barabinsky district of the Novosibirsk region, in 1930 the family moved to the city of Kemerovo. His epic paintings were always full of love and admiration for his homeland. In 1938 he entered the architecture faculty of Novosibirsk Institute of Civil Engineering. Simultaneously, he worked as an artist-animator at the Novosibirsk studio of popular science films.
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In the workshop. 1980. Soviet Georgian sculptor Elgudzha Amashukeli (22 April 1928 – 10 March 2002)

Soviet Georgian sculptor Elgudzha Amashukeli (22 April 1928 – 10 March 2002). People’s artist of the USSR (1988). Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1982).
Once, as a winner of the drawing competition, the sixth-grade student Amashukeli arrived in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The week spent in Tbilisi – deeply imprinted in his memory. There he first heard the opera “Aida”, first visited the exhibition of works of professional artists in the Georgian Picture Gallery. A huge impression on him made a picture of one of the founders of modern Georgian painting, Soviet artist Moisei Toidze, “Gifts for front-line friends.” The decanter, full of water on this picture, long remained mysterious to him, like an illusionist’s trick. He could not unravel the visual mystery of painting.
At the age of twelve he took part in the republican exhibition of children’s drawings and won the first victory. Maybe then his subconscious fantastical love of painting appeared. Anyway, but from that day he even more believed in his calling and never in his life changed it.
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T.A. Ivanova. 1925. Soviet Russian sculptor Anna Golubkina (1864-1927)

Soviet Russian sculptor Anna Golubkina – the largest sculptor of the late XIX – early XX century. The creativity of this genuine representative of the revolutionary-minded Russian intelligentsia served the noble cause of liberating the people from tsarist oppression. An outstanding master of portrait, she also created a number of remarkable works on social, revolutionary and philosophical themes.
The art of Anna Semyonovna Golubkina did not leave anyone indifferent. Her creativity developed at the turn of two centuries, two historical eras. Anna Semenovna Golubkina was born on January 28, 1864 in the provincial town of Zaraisk, Ryazan province. The granddaughter of the fortress peasant of the princes Golitsyn, she lost her father early, and had no opportunity to study at school. However, the natural mind and the tremendous thirst for knowledge allowed her to eventually become an educated person.
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Self-portrait. About 1927. Soviet artist Alexander Osmerkin (December 8, 1892 – June 25, 1953)

Soviet artist Alexander Osmerkin

Creativity of the remarkable artist Alexander Alexandrovich Osmerkin (December 8, 1892 – June 25, 1953) is still little known. Nevertheless, the artistic heritage of Osmerkin is enormous. His works are in many museums in Russia and the former USSR. They were often at various exhibitions, beginning in 1913, when the young painter showed his first works at the exhibition of the artists’ society “Jack of Diamonds” (Bubnovy Valet, (1910-1916). If in general to determine the nature of the painting of this master, then we can say that he is an artist of the lyric plan.
In his work predominate poetry-filled still-lifes, landscapes and portraits, although along with them Osmerkin created large thematic pictures. In particular, “Moscow suburb tavern” (1926), “The Red Guard in the Winter Palace” (1927, State Russian Museum), “Communist replenishment of the nineteenth year” (1928, the State Tretyakov Gallery).
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Portrait of the artist M. A. Kozlovskaya. 1954. Painting by Soviet artist Boris Vasilievich Korneyev (15 February 1922 – 24 December 1973)

Soviet artist Boris Vasilievich Korneyev was born on February 15, 1922 in Petrozavodsk. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Leningrad. Korneyev is a family of hereditary Petersburg workers of the Obukhovny Plant (now Bolshevik). Here worked grandfather, father, and the mother of the artist. Boris grew up in a family where there was no special wealth, but lived amicably, interestingly, loved art, and music. Everyone could play the old piano, which stood in their apartment. And since childhood Korneyev loved to draw.
The studio of fine arts at the Nevsky House of Culture, which he began to attend was then directed by VZ Zhuravlev – a man of versatile knowledge, and a music lover. He was the first teacher of Boris, who played an important role in the fate of the future artist. According Zhuravlev, the future artist stood out among other students of his studio. In addition, while visiting the Nevsky House of Culture, the president of the All-Russian Academy of Arts, I. I. Brodsky, noted watercolors and drawings by Korneyev.
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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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