Soviet artist Fyodor Vasilyevich Shapayev

Soviet artist Fyodor Vasilyevich Shapayev
Born April 16, 1927 in the village with an amazing name – Pokoi (Peace), Fyodor Vasilyevich Shapayev is a famous Soviet artist. His creativity has a high aesthetic value, and great ethical significance. With all his paintings, with all the force of sincerity and talent inherent in the master, the artist claims such unchanging, fundamental values ​​without which there can be no man – kindness, sacrifice, hard work, mental fortitude, faith, love. In a broad sense, creativity of Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1980), member of the USSR Union of Artists Fyodor Shapayev associated with the humanistic concept of realistic art, originating in the Renaissance.
Fyodor Shapayev comes from farmers of Serdobsk County of Saratov Province. “None of the relatives was linked to art, they were farmers. I do not remember my grandparents, but my parents told that he was a priest,” – says the artist. He was born April 16, 1927 in the village with an amazing name – Pokoi (Peace). Later, after becoming a famous artist, Fyodor captured the image of his native village and the parents on the canvas. In the portrait of his mother, painted in 1964, maternal life, full of daily long-term work, conceptualized as a moral achievement. The artist managed to express a deep, penetrating understanding of the mother’s life as a selfless service to the family, children. Like some other portraits of people close to the artist (his father, wife, daughter, son), Portrait of a mother has a distinctly intimate character.

In 1971, he drew the portrait of his father. This product, like many portraits and landscapes of F.V. Shapayev, characteristic – delicate flavor, with all the nobility of selected discreet tones. The artist’s father – one of those harsh, strong spirit, serious, full of dignity, “thick-set” of people in whom still lives the spirit of the Russian peasantry of the XIX century, has retained the best features of the national character, who managed to win in the Great Patriotic War. Many features of his character, and even destiny Fedor obliged to his father, who showed graphics of his son to a well-known artist, evacuated to their village at the time.

In late 1941, Peter Ivanovich Yermilov arrived from Moscow. The father brought his son’s works – mostly copies of reproductions. After Yermilov looked at the drawings, he visited the family of Shapayev and said to the boy: “Go on, do not give up painting, you have a gift.”

Yermilov was a professional painter, graduated from the Academy of Arts. He worked with the boy all the time that remained in evacuation: trained to work with nature, taught first lessons in oil painting and forbade to copy. As a reward for a particularly successful work Yermilov gave to a future painter a small trunk with real oil paints and brushes. This trunk Fedor remembered as one of the greatest gifts in his life. Leaving back to Moscow, Pyotr Ivanovich said: “Fyodor, you definitely need to learn more, you will be an artist.” So finally determined the fate of Fyodor.

All school years Fyodor Shapayev had two strong passions – painting and pigeons. And, if pigeons was a favorite hobby of thousands of boys of 1940-1950s, the passion for drawing – this is what distinguished the artist from his peers. At home, he used to draw on any available piece of paper, in the school designed the wall newspaper, drew visual aids and maps on the history and geography. As fate would have it, the boy’s passion for drawing has not gone unnoticed.

In 1944, graduated from the eight-year school at the village, Fedor Shapayev, following the advice of Yermilov, went to enter the Ivanovo Art College. When in school, he showed the work, then, to his surprise, he heard: “To the second course!”. To hear it was all the more flattered that such a high score abilities of a rural boy recognized famous artist N.G. Burov.

Immediately after graduation, in 1949, FV Shapayev entered the Moscow State Institute named after VI Surikov. FV Shapaev was lucky with the teachers. Having entered the college after the war, at age 22, he was, in fact, already formed, mature man, and was in tune with the trends inherent in the works of his college teachers.

If to talk about the artists who influenced FV Shapayev, then it is, of course, MI Kurilko and Chistyakov, who studied at the Repin. During the years of study at the institute outlook of FV Shapayev immeasurably widened. Having arrived from the provinces, he found himself in the midst of the capital’s artistic life. Already in 1953, as a student of the third year, Fedor took part in the Republican art exhibition. As part of the student practices the young artist was lucky enough to go round many cities and villages of Russia, and see many new places.

After graduation FV Shapayev was sent to the Moscow regional branch of the Union of Artists, where he, at his request, began working in Dmitrov art workshop. This choice was dictated by personal circumstances. While still in the Ivanovo Art College, Fyodor met a future teacher of Russian language and literature – a sweet, shy girl named Lida. After graduating from the Pedagogical Institute Lidia Ivanovna went to the village of Danilovo of Shumsky district, and Fyodor, after graduating from college, went to Moscow, but their communication did not stop. Separation and rare meeting only strengthened mutual feeling. In 1953, a young teacher and the future artist decided to get married.

All his life the artist remains true to his high calling, his ministry. His work – is one of the genuine, honest, fascinating with the sincerity, artistic documentation of a bygone era.

Soviet artist Fyodor Vasilyevich Shapayev

Source: Masters of painting. Fyodor Shapayev. Illustrated album. 2005