Artur Fonvizin

Biography

In 1937 the Soviet press discovered a “gang of formalists”, and among them the “three F’s”: Falk, Favorsky, Fonvizin. Fonvizin was fifty-four, and his first solo exhibition, at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, had taken place only a year earlier.

He was born on 11 January 1883 (30 December 1882, Old Style) in Riga, the son of a forester of German origin. His first works he signed “von Wiesen”: the surname Fonvizin, in this spelling, kept its German root.

In 1901, having finished five years of secondary school, he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He studied under Konstantin Gorsky, Vasily Baksheev and Nikolai Klodt; according to other accounts, the third teacher was Pyotr Klodt, so the sources disagree here. At the school he became close to Mikhail Larionov, around whom gathered young people ready to “subvert the old art”. When this group put on an exhibition without the permission of the authorities, Fonvizin was expelled along with Larionov and Sergei Sudeikin. In 1904 he went to Munich and worked in private studios, among them those of two teachers recorded only by their surnames, Heymann and Gardner. In 1906 he returned and for a time lived in the village with his parents. From 1907 his name appears constantly in exhibition lists: Blue Rose, Wreath-Stephanos, Golden Fleece, the first Jack of Diamonds exhibition in December 1910, Union of Youth, Donkey’s Tail, Target. He also joined World of Art. The work of these years is usually called Symbolist, in the spirit of “lyrical primitivism”; the best known pieces are “The Bride” (1902), “Leda” (1904) and “Composition with the Figure of Christ” (1904). I have not seen these works in the original and can judge them only from descriptions.

The war scattered him across the provinces. After the First World War began he moved to Tambov Governorate, painted a great deal from nature and taught. In 1918 he headed the fine art studio of Proletkult, the Proletarian Culture organisation, in Tambov. In 1922 he became a member of the group Makovets and took part in its exhibitions, in 1923 he taught at the art college in Nizhny Novgorod, and in 1926–1927 he again worked in the Tambov studio.

In 1927 he returned to Moscow, and the following year he joined the Society of Moscow Artists and the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. At that time he turned to watercolour, which remained his main medium for the rest of his life. In 1929 he travelled to Leningrad and sketched views of the city, and in the early 1930s he visited Kerch and the Askania-Nova nature reserve. Book work went on alongside: he illustrated “One Thousand and One Nights” (1932), “A German Romantic Tale” (1936), E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “Little Zaches” (1937), and also Alexander Kuprin’s “The White Poodle” (1934), tales by Hans Christian Andersen, poems by Alexander Pushkin and “Ruslan and Lyudmila” (1945). He drew for children’s books from the publishers Molodaya Gvardiya, Detgiz and Detizdat.

The trait by which he is recognised: he laid on his colours directly, without a preliminary pencil drawing. From the early 1940s to the end of his life he painted portraits of theatre actresses in stage costume, circus acts, scenes of pre-revolutionary life, flowers and landscapes.

In 1943, because of his German descent, he was exiled to Kazakhstan. There he began the cycles “Karaganda” and “The Cabmen”.

From 1958 to 1960 he lived in the village of Pirogovo and painted landscapes. He never stopped exhibiting, before the war or after: solo exhibitions were held at the Union of Theatrical Artists (1940), the Central House of Artistic Workers (1944 and 1947), the Central House of Writers (1955), in the halls of the Moscow Union of Artists (1958) and at the House of Artists of the Artists’ Union of the USSR (1969). He taught at the Moscow Architectural Institute. In 1970 he received the title of Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation.

Fonvizin died in Moscow on 19 August 1973 and was buried in the Vvedenskoye Cemetery. His watercolour portraits of actors and artists, landscapes and still lifes are held in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum and the State Russian Museum.