Soviet Art

Soviet ballet dancer-artist Yuri Zhdanov (1925 – 1986) and Galina Ulanova in the ballet Romeo and Juliet, 1954

Soviet ballet dancer and artist Yuri Zhdanov (1925 – 1986) – member of Union of Artists of the USSR (1964), Peoples Artist of the RSFSR (1967).
Those Soviet viewers who saw the ballet Romeo and Juliet at the Bolshoi Theater, with the famous Galina Ulanova in the title role, can be called happy. Partner of Ulanova was Yuri Zhdanov, performing in the role of Romeo, hitting a brilliant technique, broad movements and high artistry. In those years, few people knew Zhdanov to be a talented painter. Many years later, Soviet ballet dancer and artist Yuri Zhdanov was not on the scene, but at the easel – in his studio, full of sketches, drawings, and paintings.
Read more »

Monument to Sergei Yesenin in Ryazan. Bronze, granite, 1975. Soviet sculptor Aleksandr Kibalnikov (August 9, 1912 – September 5, 1987)

Soviet sculptor Aleksandr Kibalnikov (August 9, 1912 – September 5, 1987) – People’s Artist of the USSR (1963), Laureate of Lenin (1959) and two Stalin Prizes of the second degree (1949, 1951), Full member of the USSR Academy of Arts. Member of the CPSU since 1963.
Once, visiting a workshop of Kibalnikov foreign guests asked its owner the following question: “Tell me, maestro, if you have a studio to display work?” And then the sculptor advised them to visit the capital’s Mayakovsky Square, to go to the Tretyakov Gallery, visit Brest, Saratov, Ryazan and other cities, where his monuments are installed… In fact, his works together with the works of artists of different generations are like a huge, constantly open to all art gallery. Today we can not imagine Moscow without monuments of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Pavel Tretyakov, Saratov without monuments of Lenin, NG Chernyshevsky, Ryazan – without the monument of Yesenin SA, Brest – without the memorial “Brest fortress”.
Read more »

Sad clown. Wooden sculpture, 1970. Soviet Sculptor Mikhail Smirnov (January 26, 1926 – January 10, 2011)

In Soviet art 1960-70-ies Mikhail Smirnov has a special place. The artist more closely than most of his contemporaries, was connected with the traditions of wooden sculpture. Masters of Permian Plastics, ST Konenkov and GI Motovilov played a great role in shaping him as a sculptor. The artist asserts human ideal, capable of strong feelings and actions. This embodied his dream of a harmonious personality, coupled with the nature loving people who know the price of a simple peasant labor. The ability in easy pose, in the expression of natural human movements capture the beauty of everyday life, distinguishes the sculptor. Sculptures of MN Smirnov – a poetic statement about the beauty of working people. Soviet artist Mikhail Smirnov (January 26, 1926 – January 10, 2011) – a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR (1952), Honored Artist of Russia (1976), People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1983). Sculptures of MN Smirnov are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, more than 30 museums in Russia and former USSR republics, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, France and England, as well as in private collections in the country and abroad.
Read more »

S. Malyutin. Portrait of Chairman of the Revolutionary Russia Art Association Alexander Grigoryev. Oil. 1923. The State Tretyakov Gallery

The Revolutionary Russia Art Association, or AKhRR – the most vigorous artistic union of the 1920s in the Soviet Russia, which existed from 1922 to 1932. It absorbed different artists – from N. Kasatkin, A. Rylov, and M. Grekov to A. Lentulov, A. Kuprin, and P. Konchalovsky. In addition, AKhRR – the most numerous group, which already in 1927 had forty branches in different cities of Soviet Union. Finally, it found a clear political orientation. AKhRR path can be considered as the search for a common language between the artists and the mass audience, which, according to Lunacharsky, was necessary to find in the works of contemporary artists “clear to the maximum language, the presence of deep feelings, the desire to penetrate the inner world of people, and first of all in the vanguard of people, in its Communist party. ”
Read more »

Soviet artist Pyotr Ossovsky (May 18, 1925 – August 1, 2015). Sons. Oil. 1968-1975

Soviet artist Pyotr Ossovsky (May 18, 1925 – August 1, 2015) – Corresponding Member (1988), Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts (1995), People’s Artist of the USSR (1988), winner of the USSR State Prize (1985), member of the USSR Union of Artists since 1956. Ossovsky entered the Soviet art in 1960s, he was one of the so-called “severe style”. Ossovsky traveled a lot: Siberia and Central Asia, Vologda and the Crimea, Italy and Britain – this is an incomplete list. Travel – an essential part of his creative life. Ossovsky was a genuine internationalist, able to understand the soul of another people, to find common concerns, hopes, joys of all people of the earth. Working in Mexico, for example, he learned Spanish, knew Mexican songs, creativity of eminent artists. And the trip resulted in an excellent series of paintings.
Read more »

Soviet artist Viktor Ivanov (born 1924). Self-portrait at age 9. Oil. 1933

Look at children’s works of the artist – Self-Portrait at age 9, and a portrait of grandmother Natalia painted by 15-year-old artist. They talk about the early development of talent and persistent skill finding. Soviet artist Viktor Ivanov belongs to a remarkable constellation of Soviet artists whose artistic career began at the first youth exhibitions in the 1950s. Within ten years, their works were largely decisive for the Soviet art, and themselves “young” become mature great masters. Paintings of the artist are in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum: “For mowing. In the tent,” “Family. 1945”, “Ryazan meadows”, “In the Eye”, “Cafe “Greco”. Almost all of them depict the native Ryazan land, and deep love of the author to the person – worker. Artist searchingly looks into the fate of the people of the village today, creates generalized, pathetic images, which bear the stamp of all Soviet people.
Read more »

Last villagers of Rusinovo. 1979. Fragment of painting. Soviet artist Viktor Harlov

Soviet artist Viktor Harlov (born August 7, 1949) – People’s Artist of RSFSR, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts, the winner of the RSFSR State Prize of IE Repin for a series of paintings “Rusinovo land”. Besides, he is the winner of the Lenin Komsomol Prize (1979). Native of Murmansk region, he studied at the art department of the Kirov Regional Art School. In 1976 he graduated from the Faculty of Painting of the Moscow State Art Institute named after VI Surikov (studio of monumental painting, professor K.P. Tutevol). Works by Soviet artist Viktor Harlov are kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Kirov regional art museum of Vasnetsov, in the vaults of the State Museum and Exhibition Centre ROSIZO (Moscow) and the Directorate of Art Exhibitions of Artists Union of Russia (Moscow), the Institute of Russian realist art (Moscow), as well as in museums and galleries of the former USSR – Irkutsk, Vologda, Izhevsk, Pavlodar, Syktyvkar, Murmansk, Lvov (Ukraine), Kaliningrad, Chuguev (Ukraine).
Read more »