Soviet Art

USSR Culture

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai. Summer garden. Pastel. 1955

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai (1914 – 1998). Summer garden. Pastel. 1955

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai (1914 – 1998) – teacher, professor, Corresponding Member (1957), Academician of the USSR Academy of Arts (1964). People’s Artist of the USSR (1974), winner of the USSR State Prize (1978) and two Stalin Prizes third degree (1951, 1952). He did a lot for the revival of the Russian landscape in the post-war Soviet art. In the revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russian avant-garde art, and then in the Soviet art of 1930-1950-ies landscape was not popular. However, after the war, returning from the war artists began to look at the world through different eyes. Gritsai was one of these artists, who preferred the pure landscape in the art study. In addition, Gritsai was an outstanding teacher. He taught and then led a workshop at the Moscow State Institute named after Surikov, headed a commission of the Academy of Arts on the work with young artists.

A. Gritsai. Portrait of wife with a son. 1954

A. Gritsai. Portrait of wife with a son. 1954

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai was born March 7, 1914 in St. Petersburg. In the early years Alexei Gritsai received his first lessons in painting from the masters of the old Imperial Academy Robert Bach and Robert Zaleman. In 1932 Gritsai entered the Leningrad Institute of Painting Sculpture and Architecture. By this time he was already a painter of certain views, focused on the classical school. Immediately after graduation, Gritsai was called up for military service in the artillery. From the first day of the Great Patriotic War, he was at the front, with fighting went from the western borders to Stalingrad. He was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War II degree.

After returning from the front Gritsai entered the masters team, who worked on the canvas “The USSR Academy Presidium meeting.” At this time, the artist created three portraits of academicians Nikolai Semyonov, Mikhail Pavlov, and Boris Polynov. These works brought a portrait painter Stalin Prize. They were distinguished by great psychological expressiveness and delicately written out details. In the performance of these works I felt serious, thorough school. Remembering the Academy of Fine Arts, Gritsay always gratefully spoke about the period of study at Vasily Yakovlev and Isaak Brodsky.

For a long time Gritsai taught at the Art School in memory of 1905 and at the Moscow State Art Institute named after Surikov. He always reminded students that “the ability to draw, knowledge of the laws of perspective and composition does not stop the process of expression of talent, but only helps it.”

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Summer garden Sketch. 1955

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

In the spring forest. 1980

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

A. Gritsai. Summer. 1984

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

A. Gritsai. Village Malye Gari. Oil. 1983-1984

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

A. Gritsai. Willow in bloom

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

A. Gritsai. Winter in Andrichevo. Canvas, oil. 1984

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

A.M. Gritsai. Spring earth. 1965-1981. Canvas, oil

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

After the summer rain. 1983

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Alexei Gritsai (1914–1998). After Spring Floods. 1971

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Alexei Gritsai (1914-1998). Collective farm power station. 1950

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Alexei Gritsai (1914–1998). Stubble Field. Oil on cardboard. 1970s

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Alexey Gritsai. On veranda. Oil. 1958

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

April evening. 1970. Oil on canvas

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

April. Snow melts. 1955

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Aspen forest. Autumn evening. 1976

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Cranes are Flying. 1968-1980. Ministry of Culture of Russia

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Green rye. 1959 National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, Minsk

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Ice drift. 1976-1983. State Tretyakov Gallery (right part)

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Ice drift. 1976-1983. State Tretyakov Gallery (right part)

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

May in the water meadows. 1980

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

On the Vologda land. 1973

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Ortho. Italy. Etude. 1981

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Portrait of Academician BB Polynov. 1951. Lvov Art Gallery

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Portrait of Academician MA Pavlov. 1951. The State Tretyakov Gallery

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Portrait of academician NN Semenov. 1951. The Museum of Russian Art, Kiev

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Road on Christmas. 1952

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Soviet farm Zagorye. 1959

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Spring. Big water on the Oka. 1970-1984 The State Tretyakov Gallery

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Still life. 1940

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Swamp. Dusk. 1992

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

The first green. Herd. 1957. Vyatka Regional Art Museum

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Traitor. 1945

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Venetian Canal. 1962

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Venice. 1963

Soviet landscape painter Aleksei Gritsai

Willow flowers. High Water (fragment). 1959-1983

Cold spring. 1978

Cold spring. 1978

The evening in the house of the artist Andrei Tutunov. 1962. Soviet artist Alexei Gritsai

The evening in the house of the artist Andrei Tutunov. 1962. Soviet artist Alexei Gritsai

Snowdrops. 1956. All-Union exhibition of Soviet art to the 40th anniversary of October Revolution

Snowdrops. 1956. All-Union exhibition of Soviet art to the 40th anniversary of October Revolution