Soviet Art

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).
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Soviet means excellent

Born in the USSR people remember this slogan “Soviet means excellent!”. This statement, formed in the second half of the 1930s, after the NEP (New Economic Policy), and the period of the first five-year plan and the collectivization came the period of industrial growth. By 1934-1935 has come a stage of stable expansion of the consumer market. Along with advertising exports, was gaining popularity advertising for domestic trade, created in the specialized art offices. Virtuoso poster artist A. Zelensky (1882-1942) is considered Patriarch of Soviet commercial posters. The same brilliant creative way is characteristic for a young Soviet artist-advertiser of the time A. Pobedinsky (1904-1979). They worked in parallel in commercial poster art – the ice cream advertisement, meat and dairy products, canned food, fruit juice and spirits. Advertising these products is striking in diversity.
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USSR Energetics Soviet Poster Art. Alexander Samokhvalov ‘The Soviets and electrification are the basis of the new world’. Leningrad, 1924

USSR Energetics Soviet Poster Art created by prominent and unknown Soviet artists gallery of posters, which in fact, has become the chronicle of several epochs of a giant country – the USSR. These posters are kept in private collections and museums and have already become true antiques. The first posters were meant to get across the basic idea of countrywide power plant construction to the common man. The main slogan was “Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country”. And thus energetics, the driving force of the economy in the twentieth century, has become one of the main themes in poster art, from the GOELRO (State Electrification of Russia) plan to the youth working on building new HPPs, from preserving electricity to its measured production.
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Tribune and poet, Soviet artist Vladimir Mayakovsky (July 19 1893 – 14 April 1930)

Soviet artist Vladimir Mayakovsky
Although many know Mayakovsky as a poet, tribune, he made several thousand drawings and most of the texts to them. And if he had not entered the world culture as a poet, he would have remained in history as the creator of a new surprising revolutionary art. “Everything for everyone!” – shouted big red letters on the billboard poster “20 years” at exhibition organized by Mayakovsky in February 1930 in the Club of the Federation of Writers in Moscow. The title of the poster expressed the main principle of work of the great poet, essayist, playwright, actor, and artist. The talent of artist manifested itself earlier than all the others. Meanwhile, in the family of Mayakovsky all could draw well. In particular, father Vladimir Konstantinovich (by the way, many pieces of furniture in the house were made according to his drawings), mother Alexandra, ​​and sisters Olga and Lyudmila.
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Soviet sculptor Omar Eldarov (born December 21, 1927). Portrait of a student. 1970, gypsum

In Baku, Nakhchivan, Kirovabad and other cities of Soviet Azerbaijan were dozens of monuments to poets, revolutionaries, scientists, generals. Azerbaijani sculptors decorated their cities with such taste and skill that they were invited to other republics of the USSR. Azerbaijan has formed a sculptural school, which developed under the influence of Russian sculpture, because most of the sculptors studied in Moscow or Leningrad. But the identity traits manifested themselves more and more insistently. This is evidenced, in particular, in the work of one of the representatives of the Azerbaijani sculpture Omar Gasanovich Eldarov (born December 21, 1927). Soviet sculptor Omar Eldarov – Academician, member of Academy of Art of the USSR (1984), awarded Silver Medal of the USSR Academy of Arts (1962), the USSR State Prize (1962), Cavalier of the Order “Badge of Honor” (1980) and Order of Red Banner of Labor (1980).
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Vazhgort farewell to winter. Oil. 1966-1967. Soviet artist Vladimir Stozharov (January 3, 1926 – November 22, 1973)

Soviet artist Vladimir Stozharov (January 3, 1926 – November 22, 1973) – Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1965), laureate of the State Prize of the RSFSR of Repin (1968) – for the painting “New North”, “White Night. Vazhgort Village”, “Saturday”, “Big Village Pyssa”, “Isady” from the series of landscapes in the North of Russia. In 1973 the artist was elected a Corresponding Member of USSR Academy of Arts. It was a great artist and generous talent, who had his school, his theme in painting. Twenty years of hard and fruitful work, entirely devoted to the cherished creative idea for a constant improvement of skills made a name of Stozharov inseparable from the classics of Soviet realist painting. His artistic career ended too early, and many of his ideas remained non-embodied.
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Soviet graphic artist Vladimir Favorsky (1886-1964). Peace. Linocut. 1961

Soviet graphic artist Vladimir Favorsky (1886-1964) was born at the turn of two epochs, and lived in the first half of the twentieth century, when established traditional art was replaced with carrying a giant boost of energy and ideas new forms. To the spirit of the analysis Favorsky contrasted the spirit of synthesis and to the decay of art into its constituent elements – integrity. Vitalizing beginning in his creativity – direct trace of the great traditions of Russian art and culture. Soviet graphic Vladimir Favorsky – master of portrait woodcuts and book illustrations, designer, painter, muralist, teacher and theorist of fine arts, professor. Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Arts (1957), Academician (1962), People’s Artist of the USSR (1963), winner of the Lenin Prize (1962).
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