Soviet artist Leonid Andreyevich Fokin 1930-1985

Before the thunderstorm. 1960. Fragment. Soviet artist Leonid Andreyevich Fokin (July 9, 1930 – 1985)

Soviet artist Leonid Andreyevich Fokin

Born July 9, 1930 in Pavlograd, Dnepropetrovsk region, Ukrainian SSR, Leonid Andreevich Fokin studied at the Kishinev Art College. And then followed six years of studying at the Faculty of Painting of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Ilya Repin of Academy of Art of the USSR (1950-56). His teachers were prominent Soviet artists A. Debler, E. Tabakova, A. Mylnikov, and V. Anisovich. He graduated from the workshop of Professor V.M. Oreshnikov, the diploma painting – “In the Evening”.
The professionalism that he acquired, having passed all the stages of the Repin school, organically combined with his natural talent. A virtuosic draftsman and sensitive colorist, Leonid Fokin managed to create energetically powerful and simultaneously lyrically filled works, which, in addition to undoubted artistic and visual merits, distinguish a sense of the accuracy of the nature of time and place.

In the evening. Diploma work. 1956. Soviet artist Leonid Andreyevich Fokin (July 9, 1930 – 1985)

Working in all genres of painting, Fokin was able to reveal the reality in such a way that, regardless of the subject, the images created by the author appear before the viewer in fullness both personal and national nature. Thus, the landscape painted by the master becomes a holistic image of the Motherland, and the portrait of a contemporary – an expanded characteristic of the archi-tectural component of a compatriot.

Soviet artist Leonid Andreyevich Fokin

A young woman’s portrait. 1969

A member of the Leningrad Union of Artists since 1957, he participated in exhibitions of Soviet Art. Talented colorist, he painted portraits, landscapes, genre and historical compositions, and still lifes. Among the main paintings: “Troubled Youth” (1957), “Portrait of the Artist A. Kostina” (1958), “The Son of the Regiment” (1959), “Market Day in Sednevo”, “To the Night” (both 1961), “The Labor Day ended”, “Before the Storm” (both 1964), “Alla”, “Blossomed Willow” (1973), “Izhorskie Strong men” (1975), “Spring Voices” (1980), etc.
Leonid Andreevich died in 1985 in Leningrad. One of the strongest Russian realist masters of the second half of the 20th century, his personal exhibition (posthumously) took place in St. Petersburg in 2010.
His works are in museums and private collections in Russia, France, the United States, Italy, Britain and other countries.