Geliy Korzhev

Biography

In Dmitry Zhilinsky’s painting “By the Sea. Family” (1964), in the upper left corner, among a group of holidaymakers, is Geliy Korzhev. The two were friends. Korzhev was then nearly forty, and he had already finished his triptych “Communists”.

He was born on 7 July 1925 in Moscow, the son of the architect Mikhail Petrovich Korzhev, one of the founders of Soviet landscape architecture; the painter’s full surname was Korzhev-Chuvelyov. In 1939–1944 he studied at the Moscow Secondary Art School under Vasily Pochitalov, Mikhail Dobroserdov and Mikhail Barshch, and then, until 1950, at the Surikov Institute under Sergei Gerasimov.

He worked on the triptych “Communists” from 1957 to 1960: “The Internationale”, “Raising the Banner” and “Homer (Workers’ Studio)”. In 1966 it earned Korzhev the Repin State Prize of the RSFSR. Close to it in time are “Lovers” (1957–1959) and “The Artist” (1960–1961). The manner of these years is easy to recognise: a sharp composition, muted colour, figures pushed forward into close-up and modelled so solidly that one wants to touch them. This tactile, object-like modelling stayed with him later on. In 1962–1967 came the series “Scorched by the Fire of War”; like the triptych, it is in the Russian Museum. His theme is almost always the same: a person in a dramatic, heroic or entirely ordinary situation, seen at close range.

To my mind, the date ranges attached to his paintings say more about him than any label. “Overturned” was painted from 1970 to 1976, “Doomed” from 1970 to 1975, “Egorka the Flyer” from 1976 to 1980, and “The Deserter” over ten years, from 1985 to 1995.

Alongside this ran an official career. Korzhev taught at the Moscow Higher School of Art and Industry (the former Stroganov School), becoming a professor in 1966. In 1962 he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Arts, and in 1970 a full member. In 1968–1975 he was first secretary of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR, was twice elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, and in 1979 received the title of People’s Artist of the USSR. The USSR State Prize of 1987 was awarded for the paintings “Conversation”, “Clouds of 1945” and “Don Quixote”.

From 1984 to 1991 he painted the “Mutants”, or “Tyurliki”, surreal creatures usually read as an image of the political intrigues of the perestroika years. These canvases stayed with the artist. In the 1980s and 1990s came “The Last Bell” (1985), “Temptation” (1985–1990), “Dostoevsky in Penal Servitude” (1986–1990), “Back to Our Own” (1988–1990), “Marusya” (1990–1991) and “Crucifixion” (1993–1994); in the nineties he returned more than once to Don Quixote and the Gospels. Life outside painting, he said, lost all meaning for him, and what he valued most in his work was the freedom to paint what he wanted, as he felt and as he was able.

His paintings are in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum and the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis.

Geliy Korzhev died in Moscow on 27 August 2012 and was buried in the Alekseyevskoye Cemetery. The monument on his grave, made to the artist’s own sketches, is the work of his grandson, the sculptor Ivan Korzhev. In August 2020 a memorial plaque was put up on the house at 3 Verkhnyaya Maslovka Street in Moscow.