Soviet painter Nadezhda Isaakovna Kovtunova

After the war. ‘Little Soldier’ (a boy playing the accordion). Soviet painter Nadezhda Isaakovna Kovtunova (07 March 1916 – 1998)

Soviet painter Nadezhda Isaakovna Kovtunova (07 March 1916 – 1998) – Member of the USSR Artists Union, People’s Artist of the RSFSR, Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1977). The true representative of Soviet art, she worked in socialist realism direction of art. The artist painted portraits of heroes of war and labor, milkmaids and shepherds, factory workers and ordinary village grandmothers and did it brilliantly. Kovtunova was indeed a remarkable woman – intelligent, charming and very talented. She was born in Kiev in 1916. And in 1929, her family moved to Odessa, where Nadezhda entered the Art School of Grekov. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the family evacuated to the Urals. Later, Nadezhda arrived in Tula, already with her husband, who was later appointed director of one of the Tula defense plants. After the war, Nadezhda entered the Tula association “Vsekohudozhnik” (All-Russian Union of cooperative associations of Fine Arts, which existed from 1928 to 1953). She naturally became a part of a community of local artists, and with them went into the creative assignment for districts of the region.

Chekalinsk expanses. (1965)

Nadezhda was a permanent participant of Exhibitions of Soviet Art since 1948. Her major paintings include – “Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) in Alakaevka” (1953), “Straight Talk” (1955), “Combat mission” (1963), “Panfilov” (1972), portraits and portrait-painting “Kirillovna from Dubna” (1957), “Agronomist GD Sorokin” (1964), “Filimonov masters” (1964-67), “April landscape” (1955), “Yasnaya Polyana” (1956), “Chekalinsk expances” (1965), “Landscape with a horse” (1983), and others. The works of Kovtunova are in the collections of the State Art Museum of Tula and Ivanovo, as well as the art collection of Tula arms factory.

Soviet painter Nadezhda Isaakovna Kovtunova

February. 1957 Oil on canvas (07 March 1916 - 1998)

February. 1957 Oil on canvas. Soviet painter N.I. Kovtunova (07 March 1916 – 1998)

Thanks to the artist preserved real images of her countrymen in the museum gallery. Kovtunova had a real gift of portrait artist – perhaps because she felt people fine, loved them, and in each of her “models” have seen a special beauty and harmony.

Soviet painter N. Kovtunova died in 1998, buried in Smolensk cemetery of Tula.