Aleksandra Beļcova

Biography

Beļcova’s first solo exhibition took place in Petrograd in 1919, and right after it she left for Latvia, where she had never lived before.

She was born on 17 March 1892 (5 March, Old Style) in Surazh, in Chernigov Governorate, into a peasant family. Her father, Mitrofan Beļcov, received a hereditary noble title for his services. In 1912 she graduated from the girls’ gymnasium in Novozybkov and entered the Penza art school, which she completed in 1917. Latvian artists evacuated from the war zone were also in Penza: Jēkabs Kazaks, Konrāds Ubāns, Voldemārs Tone and, according to some accounts, Kārlis Johansons. She grew especially close to Romans Suta. In 1917 Beļcova went to Petrograd, and in 1918–1919 she studied under Nathan Altman at the State Free Art Workshops. Her first exhibition was held there too. In 1919 she came to Latvia together with Suta (by other accounts, at his invitation), and in 1920 she joined the Riga Artists Group. The length of her membership is given differently: by some accounts she left the group in 1924, by others in 1926, together with the other members of the Baltazars circle; the exact date is unknown.

In 1922 she and Suta married in Riga and in the same year travelled to Paris, Berlin and Dresden. Their daughter Tatiana, later an art historian, was born in Paris in 1923. From 1924 Beļcova worked at the Baltars porcelain-painting workshop (the end of her time there is dated to either 1928 or 1929) and made many designs for decorating tableware.

Of her early works, the ones most often mentioned are “The White and the Black” (1925), “Portrait of Austra Ozoliņa-Krauze” (1927) and “The Tennis Player” (1928). In the 1920s her painting was built on Cubist constructions; later it became more realistic. She worked in oil, pastel, watercolour and ink; besides portraits and still lifes, her work includes landscapes, figure compositions, caricature and book illustration. It seems to me that these materials show an artist who did not confine herself to one technique and readily moved from easel painting to applied work.

From 1920 she took part in exhibitions in Latvia and abroad, and in 1927–1931 she showed work with the Green Crow group. In 1928 a joint exhibition with Suta was held in Riga. In 1945 Beļcova joined the Artists’ Union of Latvia.

Later solo exhibitions were held in Riga (1962, 1972), Tukums (1963), Leningrad (1972, 1973), Liepāja (1974) and Jūrmala (1977).

She died on 1 February 1981 in Riga and is buried in the Forest Cemetery. Memorial exhibitions were held in Riga (1984), Liepāja and Madona (1985) and Valmiera (1986). In 2008 a museum of the two artists was opened in the apartment on Elizabetes Street where Beļcova and Suta lived.