Soviet Art

Portrait of Anna Ekston. 1967. Oil on canvas. Soviet Estonian artist Leili Muuga (1922-2016)

Soviet Estonian artist Leili Muuga (1922-2016) – author of genre paintings, portraits and still lifes. As a portraitist, Muuga depicts people with a subtle and a complex inner world, a sublime and noble soul. Sensitively catching the shades of moods and feelings, she always gives a stable characteristic of the model, reveals its basic unchanging features.
In “Portrait of Anna Ekstoph” (1967), painted with great warmth and unconcealed sympathy, the nature of an elderly woman – a choreographer. All multifaceted complexity is in her artistic pose, her nervous hands. The intense inner life of the model is emphasized through the complex game of rigid graphic lines, and finely harmonized through the noble coloring.
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Rural landscape with the sun. 1967. Oil on canvas. Soviet Latvian artist Laimdot Murniek (1922-2011)

Soviet Latvian artist Laimdot Murniek was born in 1922 in the Vestiene area of ​​the Latvian SSR. First, he studied at the teacher’s institutes in Cesis and in Jelgava (1938-1944). Then, in 1953 he graduated from the Latvian Academy of Arts with his thesis “Winged Assistant” (under the leadership of V. Kozin).
He is the author of landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and thematic paintings. Meanwhile, landscapes of Murniek never exactly repeat nature, rather it is a poem about what he saw. Always built in a certain color and emotional scale, which corresponds to the character of the image. Sometimes an artist resorts to deformation and generalization, intensifying the sharpness of figurative expressiveness. He likes to repeat all the same motive in order to reveal a new unexpected sound in it. Therefore, Murniek built his works on bright contrasts of color, so the artist is so attentive to the texture of painting.
In the “Rural Landscape with the Sun” (1967), the artist’s favorite motif: the dark trunks of trees against the background of a bright sky. The sun, an indispensable participant in his landscapes, as if melting the paint on the canvas. The fumes of palette knife, leaving sliding glare on the surface, strengthen its shine.
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In my city. 1967. Oil, canvas. Soviet Armenian painter Sarkis Muradyan (7 February 1927 – 12 July 2007)

Soviet Armenian painter Sarkis Muradyan (7 February 1927 – 12 July 2007) – People’s Artist of the Armenian SSR (1977), Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1976).
Born in 1927 in Yerevan, in 1951 he graduated from the Yerevan Art Institute. Sarkis Muradyan – author of genre paintings, portraits and landscapes.
The historical past of Armenia and its current day, the tragedy of Komitas and the bright destinies of contemporary youth are the main themes of S. Muradyan’s creativity. Meanwhile, in the interpretation of artist both lyrical and civil intonations appear. In particular, in the lyric picture “In my city” (1967) the artist embodies a deep thought about the eternal change of generations. On the connection of man with his homeland, about the present and future of eternally young Yerevan.
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Moscow, Victory Parade. Soviet photographer Evgeny Khaldey on the shooting June 24, 1945

Legendary Soviet photographer Evgeny Khaldey, together with his Leica camera, passed all 1,418 days of the war from Murmansk to Berlin. Photos of Evgeny Ananievich Khaldey (23 March 1917 – 6 October 1997) have become a classic of military photo coverage. Well known to the whole world, they are often cited as illustrations in a huge number of textbooks and encyclopedias. First of all, it was the picture “The Banner over the Reichstag” created in May 1945, which became a true symbol of the Victory, as well as the famous photo “The First Day of the War”, taken in Moscow on June 22, 1941.
At the Nuremberg trial, one of the physical evidence was photographs of Khaldey. Participated in the liberation of Sevastopol, the storming of Novorossiysk, Kerch, the liberation of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Austria, and Hungary. Member of the filming of the Potsdam Conference, the Paris Conference and the Nuremberg Trials. After the war, he created a gallery of images of soldiers in peace work.
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Vintage (Collecting grapes). 1967. Cardboard, tempera. Painting by Soviet Georgian artist Tengiz Mirzashvili (10 February 1934 – 1 January 2008)

Soviet Georgian artist Tengiz Mirzashvili

Born in 1934 in Mestia, Georgia, Tengiz Revazovich Mirzashvili (10 February 1934 – 1 January 2008) created touching landscapes, beautiful unrealizable women, flowers and birds – everything that surrounded him. Meanwhile, with his tender naivety and purity he reminded Niko Pirosmanishvili, who he looked like.
Honored Artist of Georgian SSR, he graduated from the Academy of Arts in Tbilisi, workshop of SS Kobuladze (1958).
For Mirzashvili’s creativity is characteristic the desire for wholeness and manly asceticism of images. Taken from the everyday world, his characters seem to be in slow motion. The characteristic coloring of the canvas, the stable archaic forms of the pattern resemble ancient frescoes and reliefs. And their imaginative structure manifest an interest in the historical past, folklore inherent in modern man, as a guardian of the primordial artistic culture of the people.
In the painting “Harvesting” (1967), the everyday motif is cleared of everyday life. A female figure, as impressive as a statue, exists in a special, somewhat abstract space. The artist creates a poetic image, which contains permanent human values.
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The Seagull (Portrait of Valentina Tereshkova, first woman – cosmonaut). Oil on canvas. 1964. Painting by Soviet artist Amir Nuriakhmetovich Mazitov (1928-1992)

Soviet artist Amir Nuriakhmetovich Mazitov (1928-1992) – Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1970), laureate of the Leninist Komsomol of the RSFSR award, and member of the USSR Union of artists (1958). Born in 1928 in the village of Bondyuga of the Tatar ASSR, he graduated from the Kazan Art College (1949). In 1950-1955 studied at the Moscow Art Institute of VI Surikov. After graduation, he taught at the Yaroslavl Art College (1955-1979).
In the picture “The Seagull” he depicted our famous countrywoman Valentina Tereshkova. He painted this portrait in 1964, a year after Tereshkova’s flight into space. Here the “Seagull” appears before us at that time, when she was still a sports paratrooper of the Yaroslavl Air Club. After another jump, Valentina looks dreamily into the heavenly distance. Young artist Amir Mazitov was able to convey the “spirit of the times”, creating an image filled with lyrical and romantic intonations. Meanwhile, he was one of the first to create on the canvas the image of the first woman-cosmonaut.
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Soviet artist Vilgelmina Dmitriyevna Zazerskaya (born 17 May 1927 in Leningrad, USSR)

Soviet artist Vilgelmina Dmitriyevna Zazerskaya – honored art worker and laureate of the State Prize of the Moldavian SSR. Member of the Union of Artists of Russia, she is a participant of republican, all-Union and international exhibitions of Soviet Art, including 20 solo exhibitions.
Born in 1927 in Leningrad, in 1954 she graduated from the Leningrad Higher Art and Industrial College of Vera Mukhina. Author of thematic paintings, portraits, and landscapes, Zazerskaya is a temperamental artist, enthusiastic about life and people. The subjects of her work are different – “Fishermen”, “Builders”, “Tale of the Sons of Moldova”, triptych “Light of Ilyich”, “Portrait of actress M. Bieshu”.
Today, 90 year-old artist lives and works in St. Petersburg.
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