Soviet Art

USSR Culture

Soviet sculptor Lyudmila Yelchaninova

Soviet sculptor Lyudmila Yelchaninova. Hereditary potter S. Goncharov. Grog. 1981

Hereditary potter S. Goncharov. Grog. 1981. Soviet sculptor Lyudmila Yelchaninova (born 1940, Moscow, USSR)

Soviet sculptor Lyudmila Yelchaninova was born and raised in Moscow. Since childhood, she loved to draw, mold toys, paint, dress up and decorate them. Lyudmila’s mother, seamstress, sew theater costumes, decorated Russian folk clothes with embroidery, and accustomed her daughter to needlework. Maybe these first lessons echoed over time in the work of the artist, in her love for color, adherence to all man-made, hand made good craftsmen. And now in her shop carefully preserved objects of folk life, ancient peasant clothes, arts and crafts. After graduation Yelchaninova moved to Smolensk. Teaching students sculpture and ceramics, she worked hard, took part in the exhibitions, raised a daughter. In 1973 she joined the USSR Union of Artists.
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Painting flowers Soviet artist Boris Shamanov

Painting flowers Soviet artist Boris Shamanov. Night. Asters. Oil. 1979

Painting flowers Soviet artist Boris Shamanov (15 September 1931 – March 2, 2008). Night. Asters. Oil. 1979

Painting flowers Soviet artist Boris Shamanov

Boris Shamanov (15 September 1931 – March 2, 2008) – Russian Soviet painter, graphic artist and teacher, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, member of the St. Petersburg Union of Artists (before 1992 – the Leningrad branch of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR). Already in childhood Boris liked to draw very much, as much as his uncle did. But as many boys of the war time, he, along with his friend, decided to enter the military Nautical School in 1945. But he was not taken because of age restrictions – was not yet 15 years old. A year later, he entered the Mukhina Art and Industrial School, first – department of artistic metal processing, then decorative and monumental painting, where Boris Shamanov demonstrated his talent of a painter. Talking about the artistic tastes, especially in his youth, Boris Ivanovich first called Levitan. In the works of Levitan drew an unmistakable sense of native wildlife, its majestic image of eternity, that attracts and disturbs human.
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Front-line drawings of Soviet artist Vitaly Davydov

Front-line drawings of the Soviet artist Vitaly Davydov. Member of the Budapest battle Pyotr Ikonnikov. Watercolor. 1945

Front-line drawings of Soviet artist Vitaly Davydov (1923 – 2007). Member of the Budapest battle Pyotr Ikonnikov. Watercolor. 1945

The war ended, and the front-line drawings of the Soviet artist Vitaly Davydov (1923 – 2007) have been forgotten – twenty years have lain in the old couch, brought to the country house. Then by chance the artist thought of them, put in order. Colleagues advised him to publish some of the drawings, accompanied by text. The book was called “Frontline notebook” (Notes of a soldier) to the 20 th anniversary of Victory.” On the 40th anniversary of Victory was organized the exhibition in Moscow. It exhibited 152 drawings of WWII veteran, artist Vitaly Timofeyevich Davidov, including those presented here. Watercolor depicting Sergeant Pyotr Ikonnikov, almost a boy, but backed by heavy military campaigns, medal “For Courage”, and much quiet dignity in his pose.
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Soviet sculptor Leonid Shervud

Soviet sculptor Leonid Shervud (28 April 1871 - 23 August 1954)

Soviet sculptor Leonid Shervud (28 April 1871 – 23 August 1954)

Soviet sculptor Leonid Shervud (28 April 1871 – 23 August 1954) – Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1946), doctor of art sciences was one of the first sculptors who carried out Lenin’s plan for “monumental propaganda”, starting from 1918. Leonid Sherwood was born in Moscow on April 28, 1871. Original art education he received in the studio of his father Vladimir Osipovich Shervud, academician of painting, working in the field of architecture and sculpture. Constant communication with famous figures of Russian culture and art visiting their house had a great influence on the world of young L. Shervud. Abilities of the boy appeared in the years of work in his father’s workshop. Initially, helping his father, he began to copy under the guidance of his father monuments of ancient sculpture, and then to work independently.
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Soviet artist Konstantin Finogenov

Soviet artist Konstantin Finogenov (1902-1989)

Soviet artist Konstantin Finogenov (1902-1989)

Soviet artist Konstantin Finogenov (1902 – 1989) – Honored Artist of the RSFSR, laureate of USSR State Prize. Winner of the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1949) for a series of drawings “I.V. Stalin during the Great Patriotic War. Professor. During the Great Patriotic War, on the instructions of the General Political Department of the Red Army and the Committee on the Arts of the USSR, he worked on the place of battles near Moscow, the Orel-Kursk Bulge, Stalingrad, the Soviet area of Berlin. As the front-line artist worked in the “Windows of TASS”, the newspaper “Pravda”. He drew the defeated Berlin from the dome of the Reichstag. Works of the Soviet artist Konstantin Finogenov are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Museum of Fine Arts of Pushkin, Volgograd museums, museum in Gorlovka (Donbass), the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the art gallery of the Parliament of India.
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Soviet sculptor Yekaterina Belashova-Alekseyeva

Soviet sculptor Yekaterina Belashova-Alekseyeva. Collective farm woman. 1957. Bronze

Collective farm woman. 1957. Bronze. Soviet sculptor Yekaterina Belashova-Alekseyeva

Soviet sculptor Yekaterina Belashova-Alekseyeva (1906, St. Petersburg – 1971, Moscow) – People’s Artist of the USSR (1963), Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Arts (1964), and Professor. Besides, she was a laureate of the USSR State Prize (1967), the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and medals. Member of Communist party of the Soviet Union (1945).
She studied at the Leningrad Industrial Art College, in the workshop of V.V.Lishev (1923-1924). Next, she studied at the Higher Art and Technical Institute ​​in Leningrad, workshops of R.R.Bakh, A.T. Matveyev and V.L. Simonov (1926-1930). In addition, in 1932 she graduated from the graduate school of the Institute of Proletarian Fine Arts. She taught at the Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts in 1941-1952 and the Moscow Higher School of Industrial Art (1952-1963). Since 1933 she has lived and worked in Moscow.
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Soviet Russian artist Ivan Kulikov

Soviet Russian artist Ivan Kulikov (13 April 1875 - 15 December 1941). Pioneers. Oil. 1929

Painting by Soviet Russian artist Ivan Kulikov (13 April 1875 – 15 December 1941). Pioneers. Oil. 1929

Portrait Gallery of Pioneers and Komsomol members of the 1920s, created by Soviet Russian artist Ivan Kulikov (13 April 1875 – 15 December 1941) – disciple of the great Repin is the artistic embodiment of the glorious era of the beginning of construction of socialism in the USSR.
Those who at least once visited the Russian Museum, of course, remember the huge painting by Ilya Repin – group portrait – “The ceremonial meeting of the State Council.” In working on this piece to the great artist helped Boris Kustodiev and Ivan Semyonovich Kulikov – his “most significant” disciples, as Stasov called them. From The first creative steps the artist showed the brightness of his pictorial talent. Already becoming academician of painting, Ivan Semenovich talked about his vocation for art: “I loved to paint since childhood, and the guys called me an artist. Art teacher insisted that I was engaged in painting, and even brought me an easel – the tripod.”.
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