Soviet Art

Marx’s head. The model of the monument for the DDR. 1969. Gypsum. Soviet sculptor Lev Kerbel (7 November 1917 – August 14, 2003, Moscow

Soviet sculptor Lev Kerbel was the Professor, Academician, and Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Arts from 1988 to 2003. He was the People’s Artist of the USSR (1977), Hero of Socialist Labor (1985), winner of the Lenin Prize (1961) and the first degree of the Stalin Prize (1950). Member of the CPSU since 1963, Lev Efimovich Kerbel – author of more than 50 monuments and memorials installed in the USSR and overseas. He created a large number of statues of prominent figures of the Communist Party, Soviet politicians, generals, heroes of the Soviet Union and Socialist Labor. Together with the vice-president of the Academy of Arts M. Manizer Kerbel executed death mask of Stalin.
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Portrait of Vladimir Mayakovsky. 1968-1970. Oil. Soviet artist Nikolai Sokolov (8 July 1903 – April 15, 2000)

Soviet artist Nikolai Sokolov
Rightly called a witness of the twentieth century, he could remember every detail of his meetings with Mayakovsky, Gorky, Ilf and Petrov, Shostakovich … He was the oldest member of the Russian Academy of Arts (1947). People’s Artist of the USSR (1958), Hero of Socialist Labor (1973), winner of the Lenin (1965), five of Stalin (1942, 1947, 1949 1950, 1951) and the USSR State Prize (1975), Sokolov worked in the genre of the portrait, caricature, illustrations in the style of socialist realism. He was one of Kukryniksy, the creative team of Soviet graphic artists and painters, in which, apart from him, were full members of the USSR Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of the USSR, Heroes of Socialist Labor M.V. Kupriyanov (1903-1991), and P.N. Krylov. Nikolai Sokolov until the last days of his life continued to paint and retained an incredible clarity of mind. By his 95th anniversary Sokolov has released a book “Sketches from memory.” He died on the absurd randomness from complications after surgery on a broken leg.
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Portrait of Tchaikovsky. Marble. 1947. Soviet sculptor Zinovy Vilensky. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Soviet sculptor Zinovy Vilensky (1899-1984) – People’s Artist of the USSR (1980), second-degree Winner of the Stalin Prize (1948), member of the USSR Academy of Arts (1954). Zinovy (Zalman) ​​Moiseevich Vilensky was born October 15, 1899 in the village of Koryukovka of Chernigov region. He studied at the Department of painting of Kiev Art School, graduated from the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops in Moscow (1922-1928). Vilensky worked in the genre of monumental sculptures and sculptural portrait. His work is characterized by the transfer of the individual characteristics of the workshop model, careful modeling, the use of the expressive possibilities of the natural texture of the material.
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Vasily Terkin. Illustration to the poem of A. Tvardovsky. Soviet artist Orest Vereisky

Soviet artist Orest Vereisky (7 July 1915 Smolensk province – January 2, 1993, Moscow) – Academician of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1983), Corresponding Member (1958), People’s Artist of the USSR (1983), winner of the USSR State Prize (1978). Orest Georgievich Vereisky was born in the family of artist Georgy Vereisky and Elena Vereiskaya, the daughter of the historian NI Kareev. Until 1922 he lived in the village of Anosovo of Smolensk region. In 1936-1938 he studied at the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of the Russian Academy of Arts. Leningrad has brecome the place of creative formation of Vereisky as an artist. There, he was taught by an artist and educator AA Osmerkin, along with his father. In 1940 Vereisky moves to live and work in Moscow.
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Nurse, 1955, oil on canvas/ Painting by Soviet artist Mikhail Bozhyi

Soviet artist Mikhail Bozhyi (1911 – 1990) – People’s Artist of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1963), a full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1962). In the portraits revealed the inner significance of the person. M. Bozhyi was born September 20, 1911 in Odessa. From 1930 to 1933 he studied at the Moscow Art College (1872 – 1949). In 1936, Mikhail and his wife moved to Odessa. He worked as an animator at the Odessa film studio. He first exhibited his work in 1938 at the Regional Art Exhibition. Bozhyi made his debut with a few portrait sketches. During the Great Patriotic War, the artist, due to the state of health, did not go to the front, and created war posters and satirical drawings.
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Not looking back. The two Ilyich, 1981. Soviet photographer Dmitry Baltermants

During the World War II, Soviet photographer Dmitry Baltermants (May 13 1912 – June 11, 1990) was a war correspondent of newspaper “Izvestiya” and army newspaper “To crush the enemy.” Dmitry Baltermants worked on different fronts with his camera. He was wounded twice. Since 1954 worked as a photo journalist at the most popular in the USSR weekly illustrated magazine “Ogonyok”. His photographs decorated walls of homes, like paintings. Dmitry Baltermants got the glory and recognition of such European patriarchs as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Marc Riboud, international exhibitions and membership in the World press photo jury. Dmitry Baltermants invented his own formula of socialist realism – a report plus staged photography. At this intersection there were no farmers in white shirts, but concentrated life. Baltermants is considered one of the pioneers of color, his business card – not red ties but wax Stalin in a coffin, surrounded by a rainbow of shamelessly alive colors. With his classic military photos, he gave the world not the pathos of military parades, but a series of “How it was” – faces of the prisoners, naked human pain, scattered on the ground corpses and stooped backs of alive. Soviet photographer Dmitry Baltermants created documentary evidence of the tragedy of the war.
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Soviet artist Mikail Abdullayev (Mikail Husein oglu Abdullayev) – Azerbaijani painter and graphic artist, People’s Artist of the USSR, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Arts

Soviet artist Mikail Abdullayev (December 19, 1921, Baku – August 21, 2002, Baku) – Azerbaijani painter and graphic artist, People’s Artist of the USSR (1963), member of the Academy of Arts (1988). He studied at the Azerbaijan Art College (1935-39) and the Moscow Art Institute of Surikov (1939-49) at SV Gerasimov. During the war, he was not drafted into the army due to the request of the largest Azerbaijani artist Azim Azimzade before the first secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan Mirjafar Bagirov. The artist’s work is dominated by lyrical themes. Author of paintings “Evening” (1947), “Mingechevir Lights” (1948), “The builders of Happiness” (1951), “Indian series” (1957-1960), “Centennial carver A. Babayev” (1961), “Girls of Khachmaz” (1982), “Beyond the river Araks” series of drawings (1950), illustrations to the epos “Kitabi Dede Korkut” (1956) and the poem “Layla and Majnun” (1958). Mikail Abdullayev is the author of the book “Through the eyes of Baku citizen” (1962)

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