What became famous for the 7 most famous Russian artists of the twentieth century

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The heyday of the Russian school of painting art came in the 18th century, after the opening of the Imperial Academy of Arts. This educational institution opened the world to such outstanding artists as: Vasily Ivanovich Surikov, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel, Fedor Stepanovich Rokotov, as well as many other famous masters. And already from the 1890s, female representatives were allowed to study at this academy. Such talented artists as: Sofya Vasilievna Sukhovo-Kobylina, Anna Petrovna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Olga Antonovna Lagoda-Shishkina and others studied here. In the 20th century, the number of women in painting increased significantly. They not only painted pictures, but also created postcards, illustrated books, decorated various posters, and their work in print media was published in thousands of copies.

Elizaveta Merkurievna Boehm (1843-1914)

Elizaveta Boehm never painted large paintings, like, for example, Repin or Aivazovsky, but she nevertheless gained recognition in Russia, being considered one of the best domestic artists of that time. Elizabeth spent her childhood in the village of Scheptsovo, Yaroslavl province, where she was imbued with great love and trepidation for Russian rural culture.

Elizabeth drew from childhood on any piece of paper that came to her hand. Since 1857, for seven years, the girl studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists in St. Petersburg. Her first works were created on the estate of her parents, where she created drawings for the books of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. And already in 1875, a whole album of her postcards, entitled "Silhouettes", was released - black and white illustrations on various everyday topics. After a short time, Elizabeth met Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. He invited her to cooperate with his publishing house.

And in the 1890s, Boehm created illustrations for Nikolai Semenovich Leskov's story "The Insulted Neta". Elizabeth also drew for children's magazines, fairy tales, alphabet and fables. The most popular works of the artist are children's albums "Proverbs in Silhouettes" and "Sayings and Sayings in Silhouettes". Postcards from these albums were released in thousands of copies, and not only in Russia, but also in the USA, Great Britain, France and Germany.

Still, the real fame came to Elizabeth Boehm when she began to paint glassware. At the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, Boehm represented Russia. To show the dishes in the most favorable light, she decided to paint the glass in a Russian country style. Thus, ancient Slavic patterns, images of fairy tale heroes, folklore characters, humorous phrases and proverbs appeared on glasses, cups, bottles. They were real works of art. Her efforts were appreciated at the exhibition, where she received a gold medal and world fame.

Antonina Leonardovna Rzhevskaya (1861 - 1934)

This Russian artist-painter is one of two women admitted to the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. This is the official name of the Itinerant artists, which include Surikov, Repin, Shishkin, Makovsky and other outstanding painters.

Antonina was educated in Moscow, attending the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in the 1880s as a free listener under the direction of Vladimir Egorovich Makovsky. After the girl began to paint professionally. Unfortunately, few of Rzhevskaya's works have survived to this day, despite the fact that Antonina painted pictures until the end of her days. The places where some of her works are kept are still unknown.

Basically, the artist painted genre paintings, scenes from the everyday life of ordinary people, as well as portraits of children. Her works have participated in many exhibitions, where they were often bought by collectors, book publishers and other connoisseurs of painting. For example, at one of the exhibitions the book publisher Kozma Soldatenkov bought a canvas with the title "Orphans", and the famous collector and founder of the gallery of the same name, Pavel Tretyakov, bought her painting "Merry Minute".

It is interesting that it was in this work that she did not indicate her authorship, simply indicating the code, being afraid to put her last name. "Merry Minute" became one of the most atypical work for the Wanderers, because basically they had a dramatic, one might even say grieving theme, and here is fun and dancing. By the way, due to disagreements in the program of the Itinerants, Rzhevskaya decided to leave their ranks.

Lyudmila Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya (1884-1972)

The name of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky is on everyone's lips, but few know about his older sister Lyudmila. She is included in the circle of women of the Russian avant-garde, but her recognition came too late. Fame in European countries came to her only after her death, when at exhibitions in Oxford and the cities of Italy were shown samples of fabrics from her collection, which were transferred to the museum by bequest. At these exhibitions, Giorgio Armani himself admired her fabric, distinguishing it from other samples.

The brother's fame was the main reason for this late recognition. Opponents of Vladimir Mayakovsky discussed not only his name, but also his sister, despite her completely different profession. After graduating from the printing department at the Stroganov School, she got a job at Moscow factories as a fabric artist. Ludmila's non-publicity also hindered her career, because she did not even organize personal exhibitions of her works. But on the other hand, she won the respect of colleagues at the textile mills, where she worked for about forty years, and even received honorary government awards.

She was the real pride of the textile industry. But all her works, presented at various professional exhibitions, including world ones, brought success and fame not to Mayakovskaya herself, but only to the factories that she represented. By the way, she was the only representative of the fairer sex in the Prokhorov factory, and not an ordinary employee, but the head of a department. We can say that she was one of the first women in pre-revolutionary Russia to hold high administrative positions.

Lyudmila Mayakovskaya patented in Russia new technologies for dyeing fabrics using an airbrush that sprays a dye, as a result of which unusual patterns appear. So Mayakovskaya was the only master of this method of dyeing fabric in the whole country.

Sonya Turk-Delaunay (1885 - 1979)

This talented artist was born in the sunny city of Odessa, Kherson province, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. Her real name is Sara Ilinichna Stern. At the age of five, little Sarah became an orphan; her mother's relatives took her to St. Petersburg. The girl's new family traveled around Europe quite often, visiting various exhibitions and museums. Impressed by the works of the masters, Sarah began to paint, signing her works with the surname of her uncle - Turk, who became her instead of her father.

And already at the age of eighteen she entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, and two years later moved to Paris, where she studied at the Académie de la Palette. In her first works "The Sleeping Girl", "Nude in Yellow", "Philomena", the influence of such artists as Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Rousseau is noticeable. But after Sonya became the wife of the famous French abstractionist Robert Delaunay, more abstraction and geometry began to be observed in her paintings.

During the First World War, Sonya Terk-Delaunay moved to Spain, but in the 1920s she returned to Paris, where she opened her atelier. There, the artist sewed theatrical costumes, developed patterns for fabrics, and wrote inscriptions on clothes. Sonya even took part in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts. Her Art Deco work has often been used in design projects, scenography and advertising. 1964 was a successful year for Sonya, because she, the first of the women, had a personal exhibition in the Louvre itself. Ten years later, Sonia Turk-Delaunay was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor, which is considered the highest distinction and official recognition of merit in France.

Nadezhda Andreevna Udaltsova (1885-1961)

Nadezhda Udaltsova is one of the most prominent representatives of the Russian avant-garde. From an early age, Nadezhda was fond of painting. First she studied at the Moscow women's gymnasium V. P. Gelbig, and then at the private art school of K. F. Yuon.

When the girl was twenty-two years old, she left for Germany to study the canvases of the old masters in the Dresden Gallery. Soon Nadezhda became interested in contemporary art. This happened after the exhibition of Viktor Borisov-Musatov and the works of the impressionists from the collection of Sergei Shchukin, which impressed the girl. And since 1911, the artist, together with the avant-garde artists Mikhail Larionov, Lyubov Popova, Natalia Goncharova and Vladimir Tatlin, entered the collective free workshop "Tower". Then she returned to Paris again to study at the Accademia La Pallette.

By 1913, Udaltsova was able to form her own style, where elements of cubism were present. The most famous works of that time were "The Seamstress", "The Model", "Composition", with which she participated in futuristic exhibitions. After the 1917 revolution, Udaltsova's main activity was teaching at the State Art Workshops, but she did not forget to hold her own exhibitions as well. Having married the artist Alexander Drevin in 1919, she and her husband experimented with color, creating avant-garde paintings. In 1928, their personal exhibition was held at the Russian Museum.

Lyubov Sergeevna Popova (1889-1924)

Lyubov Popova is a representative of Russian constructivism. She began to study artistic skills in 1908 in the studio of K. Yuon. A few years later she left for Italy to study the works of the primitivists, then to France for a detailed acquaintance with the Impressionists. Once Lyubov met Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin, their works not only turned the mind of the artist, but also inspired her to easel works called "Picturesque Architectonics".

1921 was a busy year for Popova. She participated in several exhibitions, was engaged in scenography in V. Meyerhold's production of "The Magnanimous Cuckold", the scenery of which became a masterpiece of the avant-garde. In the late 1960s, almost no one bought Lyubov Popova's works, but since the 1980s, her paintings could go to collectors for tens of thousands of dollars. The peak demand for her work came in 2007. Then her work called "Birsk Landscape" went under the hammer at an auction for one million dollars, and "Still Life with a Tray" was sold for three and a half million dollars, by the way, this amount is still a record for the sale of works by Popova.

Currently, the artist's works are in the Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Surikov Art Museum in Krasnoyarsk, the National Gallery of Canada, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, and in private collections around the world.

Nadezhda Petrovna Leger (1904-1982)

Nadezhda Leger is a cousin of the poet Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich. At the age of fifteen, she decided to enter the Smolensk State Free Workshops. Along the way, with her studies, Nadezhda created Suprematist compositions. Then she got acquainted with Kazimir Malevich, who organized in Vitebsk an association of avant-garde artists called "Hardeners of New Art". But soon Nadezhda left to study in Warsaw at the Academy of Fine Arts. From there she went for an internship in Paris at the Academy of Contemporary Art under the guidance of the French painter and sculptor Fernand Léger, who soon became her husband.

Despite the different styles she studied in different countries, Leger still adhered more to the avant-garde. She has repeatedly participated in various exhibitions of abstract artists in France, receiving accolades for her work. She also created graphic self-portraits in the style of "Stalinist pop art". In the 1950s, in France, Nadezhda opened the F. Leger Museum of Contemporary Art, and eventually even brought his works to the USSR. She also organized an exhibition of works by Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci.