Soviet Art

The award-winning teacher. Socialist realism painter Nina Veselova (18 January 1922 – 3 March 1960)

Socialist realism painter Nina Veselova (18 January 1922 – 3 March 1960) – Soviet artist, Candidate of Arts (1954), a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists of the RSFSR (1950). She painted portraits, genre and thematic compositions, landscapes, and still lifes. A talented portraitist and painter, her favorite genre was portrait-painting with a developed plot basis. Among the works created by Veselova in less than ten years of her short creative life, many of her paintings have become true classics of Soviet art, that have withstood the test of time.
Veselova was born January 6, 1922 in Petrograd. In 1934, after participating in the contest of young talents, Veselova entered the Art School of the Russian Academy of Arts, from which she graduated in 1941. The same 1941 she became the first course student of painting faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
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Timiryazev Prospect. Tomsk Art Museum. Canvas, oil. Soviet artist Yakov Yakovlevich Panov 1919-1996

Soviet artist Yakov Yakovlevich Panov 1919-1996

Life is like a river, with the steep banks, black slough, shimmering water on a sunny day. Could peasant’s son Yasha Panov have thought, that in some years he would have become an artist? And after he had lived 77 years, gone from this world, he would be remembered? About him write articles, his paintings decorate art galleries and museums. Yakov spent difficult but happy life. He belonged to a generation that had gone through a lot of testing: hard work from dawn to dusk, a terrible war, devastation …. Despite inhuman hardships, these people blamed no one, and did not complain – they were Soviet people. Among these people was Yakov Panov – a person and an artist. Panov was born October 9, 1919 in the village of Chainsky District. In 1930 he joined the commune “Lighthouse” in the village of Svetlyanka. His father father Yakov Pavlovich was a blacksmith and collective farm beekeeper.
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Old Tomsk. Canvas, tempera. Painting by Alexandr Andreyevich Shumilkin (born January 1, 1935)

Soviet painter Alexandr Andreyevich Shumilkin (born January 1, 1935) – member of the USSR Union of Artists (1967), Honored Artist of Russia (1976), People’s Artist of Russia (1987), Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts (1988). The name of the artist is included in the encyclopedia “Best people of Russia”, and other Encyclopedias and publications. A. Shumilkin – author of many paintings devoted to the Siberian land, and in particular, Tomsk. His works are found in many museums in Russia, including Tomsk Regional Art Museum (19 works), the State Russian Museum, and the State Tretyakov Gallery. The desire to understand the infinity of the universe lives in the artist and his work next to the sonorous space of cosmic unity of earth, water and air, with a note of pantheistic inspiration, with strict and verified construction of the composition, with the laconic color palette and fine decorative. The artist deliberately chooses the point of painting, from a bird’s eye view or the window of an airplane or a helicopter. In most cases, the construction of such a composite space is designed to give the landscape an epic character.
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Woodpecker. Paper-etching. 1981. Soviet graphic artist Stanislav Nikireyev (07.11.1932 – 24.08.2007)

Soviet graphic artist Stanislav Nikireyev (07.11.1932 – 24.08.2007) – People’s Artist of Russia, Member of the Russian Academy of Arts. His works are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Union of Artists of Russia, and more than 80 museums in Russia and the former Soviet Union. His virtuoso filigree drawings distinguish a special delicate taste, subtlety of perception of nature – and striking artistic authenticity. The favorite motifs of the artist – a small Russian town, full of peculiar charm of antiquity, memorable places associated with dear to the Russian heart names and events, poetic corners of nature. Into the silver lace of his landscapes as if weaved the living members of the compositions – human, horse, dog, bird, giving the warm breath of real life to the drawing.
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Short Break from War. Oil canvas painting by Soviet artist Viktor Ivanovich Tolochko (1922-2006)

Soviet artist Viktor Ivanovich Tolochko (1922-2006) – Honored Artist of Ukraine, Honorary Academician of Crimean Academy of Sciences, winner of the Prize of Crimea. People’s Artist of Ukraine (1985). Without exaggeration, V. Tolochko is one of the pillars of the Soviet art of XX century and, in particular, Crimean art. Crimea was the main inspiration for his paintings, whether it is a seascape with ragged sea, seagulls cutting the sky, and the coastal cliffs, or a still life with unearthly flame of Crimean flowers. Viktor Tolochko – virtuoso landscape painter, master of thematic paintings and still life. He participated in numerous exhibitions, including 30 solo in Moscow, Kiev, Simferopol (repeatedly), Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Istanbul (Turkey) and others.
Viktor Ivanovich died in 2006 in Yalta, Crimea. His works are in many museums including the Ukrainian National Art Museum, as well as in private collections.
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Forestry (Autumn landscape with the river). 1958. Oil on cardboard. Soviet artist Vladimir Grigorievich Grokhovsky (1 September 1925 – 31 July 1971)

Soviet artist Vladimir Grigorievich Grokhovsky (1 September 1925 – 31 July 1971) – one of the brightest representatives of Soviet art, Soviet realism, member of the USSR Union of Artists (1964). Vladimir Grokhovsky was born in the Siberian village of Kolpashevo and grew up in a remote Siberian village Small Podyelniki in the north of the Tomsk region. Taiga for Grokhovsky became home. He, barefoot, walked through nearby trails up and down. Surrounded from childhood by endless expanses of forest, he absorbs all the mystery and poetry of his native land. It is in this environment was born the desire to become an artist. Vladimir started early, and initial support received from his mother Zinaida Konstantinovna Blaginina, Honored teacher of RSFSR.
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After the war. ‘Little Soldier’ (a boy playing the accordion). Soviet painter Nadezhda Isaakovna Kovtunova (07 March 1916 – 1998)

Soviet painter Nadezhda Isaakovna Kovtunova (07 March 1916 – 1998) – Member of the USSR Artists Union, People’s Artist of the RSFSR, Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1977). The true representative of Soviet art, she worked in socialist realism direction of art. The artist painted portraits of heroes of war and labor, milkmaids and shepherds, factory workers and ordinary village grandmothers and did it brilliantly. Kovtunova was indeed a remarkable woman – intelligent, charming and very talented. She was born in Kiev in 1916. And in 1929, her family moved to Odessa, where Nadezhda entered the Art School of Grekov. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the family evacuated to the Urals. Later, Nadezhda arrived in Tula, already with her husband, who was later appointed director of one of the Tula defense plants. After the war, Nadezhda entered the Tula association “Vsekohudozhnik” (All-Russian Union of cooperative associations of Fine Arts, which existed from 1928 to 1953). She naturally became a part of a community of local artists, and with them went into the creative assignment for districts of the region.
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