Alexander Lubimov

Biography

Lubimov received the title of artist on 30 October 1909 for his painting “Cain”. He was thirty, and had already been exhibiting for nine years: he began showing work in 1900.

He was born on 25 February 1879 (13 February, Old Style) in the village of Paltsevo, in Dmitriev District, Kursk Province. His father was a nobleman; his mother, according to some accounts, came from a peasant family. In 1892 the family moved first to Kursk and then to Saint Petersburg. From 1895 to 1901 Lubimov studied at the Central School of Technical Drawing founded by Baron Stieglitz. Sources differ on where else he studied: by some accounts, at the Drawing School of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. From 1901 he was an auditor at the Higher Art School of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, in the studio of Ilya Repin. Some name Pavel Chistyakov alongside Repin; I have no documents that confirm this.

After graduating in 1909, Lubimov, on Repin’s recommendation, took a post in Kharkiv and from 1912 to 1919 headed the art school there. His pupils included Alexander Deineka and Boris Kosarev. This was probably the most notable of his early teaching posts.

In 1906 he drew for the satirical magazine “Leshy” (“The Wood Goblin”). Theatre sketches and caricatures were later added to this line; satirical drawing remained a constant occupation alongside painting.

In 1927 Lubimov returned to Leningrad. From 1932 he was a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists. From 1934 to 1941 he taught at the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, partly at the invitation of Isaak Brodsky, with whom, according to some accounts, he ran a joint studio and its graduate students. He became a professor in 1939. His pupils are said to include Yuri Neprintsev, Nikolai Timkov, Alexander Laktionov, Pyotr Belousov and Mikhail Kozell; Deineka had studied with him earlier, in Kharkiv.

From 1949 until the end of his life Lubimov taught at the Mukhina Higher School of Art and Industry, again as a professor.

He painted portraits, genre and historical compositions and landscapes, working in oil, watercolour, gouache, pastel and pencil. His manner is described as broad, free brushwork with rich tonal relations: thickly laid patches of colour sit beside transparent reflections and shadows. Solo exhibitions were held in Leningrad in 1949 and in Saint Petersburg in 1991 and 1998.

Lubimov died in Leningrad on 19 December 1955 and was buried at the Literatorskie Mostki, the writers’ section of the Volkovo Cemetery. His works are held in the State Russian Museum and, according to some accounts, the Tretyakov Gallery, as well as in museums and private collections in Russia, France, Britain, the United States, Germany and Italy.