25.12.1859–17.12.1930
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Artists
Biographies, facts and images with open sources and verified rights.
Found: 1775
12.10.1875–11.04.1958
Konstantin Yuon
Konstantin Yuon (1875–1958) began as a painter of old Russian towns bathed in sun or snow, from Sergiev Posad to Uglich, and in 1900 opened a private studio in Moscow where Favorsky, Mukhina and Falk studied. He designed productions ranging from Diaghilev’s “Boris Godunov” in Paris to plays at the Maly Theatre, and in the Soviet years became a People’s Artist of the USSR and a full member of the Academy of Arts.30.05.1887–25.02.1964
Alexander Archipenko
Born in Kyiv, Alexander Archipenko (1887–1964) was, in the Paris of the 1910s, among the first after Picasso to carry Cubism into sculpture in the round: he broke the figure into facets and made empty space part of the form. He invented the “sculpto-painting”, taught in Paris, Berlin and Chicago, lived in the United States from 1923, and his last work, a statue of King Solomon, was completed only after his death.
04.09.1875–13.09.1946
Eugene Lanceray
Eugene Lanceray (1875–1946) grew up in the Benois family and began in the World of Art group with historical scenes from the age of Peter the Great and Empress Elizabeth, book graphics and theatre work. After the revolution he stayed in the country: he lived in Dagestan and Tiflis, taught at the Academy of Arts of Georgia, and in Moscow painted the ceilings of the Kazansky station restaurant and the halls of the Hotel Moskva.19.01.1893–12.05.1972
Arkady Plastov
Arkady Plastov (1893–1972) spent almost his whole life painting one village, Prislonikha near Simbirsk, where he was born into a family of icon painters and where he died. His wartime “Women Tractor Drivers”, “Harvest” and “Haymaking” won him the Stalin Prize, the cycle “People of the Collective-Farm Village” the Lenin Prize, and his “Spring”, with a naked woman by a bathhouse in the snow, was nicknamed the “Northern Venus”.
12.05.1936–present
Ivan Marchuk
Ivan Marchuk (born 1936) paints in a technique he himself named pliontanism, from the Ukrainian “pliontaty”, to weave: the image is built up from a great many thin strokes that look like interlaced threads. For almost a quarter of a century he worked in Kyiv without recognition from the Union of Artists; in 1989–2001 he lived in Australia, Canada and the United States, and in 1997 he received the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.
14.03.1882–15.04.1943
Aristarkh Lentulov
Aristarkh Lentulov (1882–1943), the son of a village priest from Penza Province, was among the founders of the Jack of Diamonds and, after studying in Paris under Le Fauconnier and Metzinger, painted the cathedrals and bell towers of Moscow in a Cubist manner. Later he designed productions for the Kamerny and Bolshoi theatres, taught at VKhUTEMAS and in the 1930s turned to industrial landscapes.1735–24.12.1808
Fyodor Rokotov
In 1763 Fyodor Rokotov (c. 1735–1808) painted the coronation portrait of Catherine II, after which the empress ordered that her face be depicted from it in future, and for almost thirty years afterwards he painted Moscow’s noble families. His origins are still disputed, only seven signed works are known, and a whole “Rokotov circle” has grown up around his undisputed pictures.
12.08.1881–23.07.1963
Aleksandr Gerasimov
Aleksandr Gerasimov (1881–1963), a pupil of Korovin and Serov, began as a landscape painter close to Impressionism, and in the 1930s and 1940s became the author of official portraits of Stalin and Voroshilov, winning the Stalin Prize four times. In 1947–1957 he was the first president of the USSR Academy of Arts; under Khrushchev he lost his posts and his paintings were taken off display.
17.02.1863–17.04.1930
Aleksandr Golovin
For fifteen years Aleksandr Golovin (1863–1930) was chief designer of the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg; with Meyerhold he designed sixteen productions, from “Don Juan” to “Masquerade”, and for Diaghilev’s seasons in Paris he did “Boris Godunov” and “The Firebird”. His portraits of performers in stage costume are painted with a broken, almost mosaic-like stroke.
22.10.1894–20.05.1958
Varvara Stepanova
Varvara Stepanova (1894–1958), the wife and collaborator of Alexander Rodchenko, founded the first Working Group of Constructivists with him and Aleksei Gan in 1921. She designed fabrics for the First Calico-Printing Factory, invented work and sports clothing, designed “The Death of Tarelkin” for Meyerhold and for many years was art editor of magazines. She also signed her work with the pseudonym Varst.22.12.1889–12.12.1970
Nathan Altman
Nathan Altman (1889–1970), a native of Vinnytsia, painted the portrait of Anna Akhmatova in 1914, now in the Russian Museum, decorated Palace Square in Petrograd for the first anniversary of the October Revolution, and designed sets for GOSET and Habima. In 1928–1935 he lived in Paris, and after his return he worked mainly as a stage designer and illustrator.11.02.1917–17.06.2005
Tetiana Yablonska
Tetiana Yablonska (1917–2005), a native of Smolensk, spent her working life in Kyiv: she studied under Fedir Krychevsky and taught at the Kyiv Art Institute for a quarter of a century. She won two Stalin Prizes for “Bread” and “Spring”, the USSR State Prize for “Flax”, and in 1998, for her late work, the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.18.02.1922–08.11.2010
Mikhail Savitsky
Mikhail Savitsky (1922–2010) went through the fighting for Sevastopol, captivity and three concentration camps, Düsseldorf, Buchenwald and Dachau, and became an artist only after the war. Out of that experience grew the cycles “Partisan Belarus” and “Figures on the Heart”, the “Partisan Madonna” and a mural in the Minsk war museum. People’s Artist of the USSR, first holder of the Order of Francysk Skaryna, Hero of Belarus.
29.04.1810–18.01.1893
Grigory Gagarin
As a boy in Rome, Prince Grigory Gagarin (1810–1893) drew alongside Karl Bryullov; he illustrated Pushkin and Sollogub and served in the Caucasus, where he painted the Sioni Cathedral in Tiflis and published the album “Le Caucase pittoresque”. From 1859 to 1872 he was Vice-President of the Academy of Arts and tried to turn Russian church painting towards Byzantine models.
12.01.1870–11.10.1937
Grigory Gurkin
Grigory Gurkin (1870–1937), an Altaian of the Choros clan, began as an icon painter at the mission school in Ulala, studied under Shishkin and Kiselyov at the Academy of Arts and became the first professional Altaian artist. His mountain landscapes, “Khan Altai” and “Lake of the Mountain Spirits”, toured all of Siberia. In 1918 he headed the Karakorum district administration; in 1937 he was arrested.
18.05.1877–23.04.1913
Elena Guro
Elena Guro (1877–1913) wrote poems, prose and plays and illustrated them herself. She studied under Ciągliński, Bakst and Dobuzhinsky and, together with her husband, Mikhail Matyushin, stood at the origins of Cubo-Futurism. Her books “The Hurdy-Gurdy”, “Autumnal Dream” and the posthumous “The Little Camels of the Sky” were valued by the Futurists and their opponents alike, and her works are held in the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum.22.08.1912–19.11.1999
Alexander Liberman
Alexander Liberman (1912–1999) worked for almost sixty years at Condé Nast in New York: he was art director of Vogue, then editorial director of all the company’s magazines. In the 1950s he took up abstract painting, and from 1958 he assembled large sculptures from steel beams, pipes and tanks, painted a single bright colour; “The Way”, made of eighteen oil tanks, stands near St. Louis.14.01.1904–02.11.1973
Abilkhan Kasteev
Abilkhan Kasteev (1904–1973) began to study painting at twenty-five in Nikolai Khludov’s studio in Alma-Ata, without knowing Russian, and later studied in Moscow. He painted auls and collective farms, portraits of Abai and Chokan Valikhanov, and in his late watercolours the building sites, quarries and power stations of Kazakhstan. People’s Artist of the Kazakh SSR; the State Museum of Arts of Kazakhstan bears his name.
1830–03.05.1904
Nikolai Nevrev
Nikolai Nevrev (1830–1904) graduated from the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture and made his name with scenes of everyday life in the 1860s: a merchant’s name-day, a village requiem, the sale of a serf in “From the Recent Past”. From the mid-1870s he painted Russian history, from Roman of Galicia to the trial of Patriarch Nikon. A Peredvizhnik from 1881; many of his pictures are in the Tretyakov Gallery.
30.12.1832–16.05.1902
Mikhail Clodt von Jürgensburg
Baron Mikhail Clodt (1832–1902), nephew of the sculptor Peter Clodt, studied at the Academy of Arts under Maxim Vorobyov and became one of the founders of the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions. Tretyakov bought his “On the Ploughland” straight from the second Peredvizhniki exhibition. He taught the Academy’s landscape class from the 1870s, and left the Association after a newspaper article he wrote against Kuindzhi.
1729–1802
Ivan Argunov
A serf of the Counts Sheremetev, Ivan Argunov (1729–1802) painted Catherine II, his masters and their relatives, and in 1784 created the “Portrait of an Unknown Peasant Woman in Russian Dress”, the first image in Russian portraiture of a woman of the “base estate”. Anton Losenko and Kirill Golovachevsky were among his pupils, and in his last years he managed the Sheremetevs’ Moscow house.26.08.1875–14.06.1919
Oleksandr Murashko
Oleksandr Murashko (1875–1919), a native of Kiev and a pupil of Repin and Anton Ažbe, painted portraits and genre scenes, from “The Funeral of the Chieftain” to “Carousel”, which won a gold medal in Munich in 1909. In 1913 he opened a studio in Kiev through which Tyshler, Ryback and Boris Aronson passed, and in 1917 he became one of the founders of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts.
04.08.1915–27.07.1984