"Nude" in Soviet style: How many people are asking today for the socialist realism of Alexander Deineka in the world art market

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

After the teleconference in 1986, Leningrad - Boston, the whole world learned that in the USSR there is nothing so forbidden, that there is no such thing as between a man and a woman, and this phrase became widely used in Russia to define the anti-sexuality of culture in Soviet times. And was it really so … Was art really so chaste at the time when socialist realism prevailed? Looking at the paintings of the famous classic of Soviet fine art, who had numerous titles and regalia - Alexandra Deineki - you can't say that. The artist devoted the lion's share of his creations to the nude genre.

And nowadays, the artist's erotic paintings occupy a very significant place in the world auction sales. So, in the fall of 2015, the painting "Behind the Curtain" went under the hammer at the London MacDougall's auction for 2 million 248 thousand pounds, which is almost 3.5 million dollars. This event made a splash in the art world, as its price was the highest ever paid for a painting by a famous painter of socialist realism.

This canvas is practically unknown to the general public, as it has been kept in a private collection since the day of its creation. Back in 1933, Deineka wrote and presented to his friend, artist Fyodor Bogorodsky, this uncomplicated sketch in the nude genre. And his family kept this gift in their home for many years. It has never been exhibited anywhere, so very few people knew about this work of Deineka. But one day it ended up at an auction in London, and then in the collection of a European collector.

And what can I say, could an artist have put this work in the 30s of the last century on public display? Even now it is often published in fragments … but at that time it was simply unthinkable.

A little about the artist and his work

Alexander Alexandrovich Deineka (1899-1969) hails from the city of Kursk, from the family of a railway worker. As a boy, Alexander decided on his future profession, and just before the revolution he graduated from an art school in the city of Kharkov. The revolutionary events of the 17th overwhelmed and carried through the life of the young artist. The work of a photographer in Ugrozysk, management of the studio of fine arts, design of propaganda trains, staging of performances - this is just a small list of what Deineka was passionate about in those windbreak years. Yes, and at the front he had to fight with the White Guards, defending his native Kursk.

At the end of the civil war, the artist was sent to study in Moscow, at the VKHUTEMAS at the printing department. There V. A. Favorsky and I. I. Nivinsky became his teachers and mentors, who left a deep mark on the development of the artist's original talent. It is also worth noting the enormous influence of the art of Ferdinand Hodler and German Expressionism on Deineka's work. After graduating from high school, in the second half of the 20s he worked as a graphic artist, published in magazines, illustrated poetry and novels.

Throughout his creative career, Alexander Deineka has been creating works of dynamic composition on themes of patriotic heroism, labor, sports, the artist was also fond of the nude genre. In many of the artist's canvases and sketches, not only women appear in all their naked beauty, but also men of an athletic build - strong, full of health.

Depicting the life of a happy country inhabited by athletic, athletic people, Deineka introduced innovative methods into art and found dynamic perspectives in conveying the images of the builders of the socialist future. Often, on his canvases, they work for the good of the country, go in for sports, and relax.

Sport was one of the main themes in the master's work, as Deineka loved to work with the plasticity of athletic figures in motion. This is confirmed by the paintings "Football", "Running", "Goalkeeper".

As you can see, Alexander Deineka created his own artistic style and pictorial methods in the transfer of images that became the personification of the era in which the artist lived. Although, what to hide - a little idealized.

The recognized artist with the titles of "People's Artist of the USSR", "Lenin Prize Laureate" and "Hero of Socialist Labor" is still considered the best example of a master of socialist realism in painting. And in addition to the paintings of Deinek, as a monumentalist, he created many mosaic panels for the stations of the Moscow metro.

The fate and creative path of the painter is interesting, Alexander Gerasimov, who worked in the style of socialist realism. Stalin's favorite portrait painter did not miss the opportunity to work in the nude genre and paint magnificent floral still lifes in his spare time.