Paintings and drawings by Alexei Kravchenko in the Tretyakov Gallery
ARTinvestment.RU   02 сентября 2009

Today in the Engineering building of the State Tretyakov Gallery opens the exhibition “Alexey Kravchenko: painting, drawing”, dedicated to 120 th anniversary of the artist

Today, September 2, in the Engineering building of the State Tretyakov Gallery (Lavroushinsky, 12) opens the exhibition «Alexey Kravchenko: painting, drawing», dedicated to 120 anniversary of the artist's birth.

In the history of national art Alexei Ilyich Chirikov Kravchenko (1889 -- 1940) came primarily as a distinctive and varied schedule. Anniversary retrospective exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery will present all the various skills of the master. Along with the classical works of AI Kravchenko - remarkable engraver and painter - is widely demonstrated its picturesque heritage.

Graphics Kravchenko, a virtuoso who owned practically all types of prints and drawings, many known for the books they illustrate. A different side of his artistic personality - painting: to the artist, who had a congenital picturesque view of the world and longing for the monumental forms of expression, turned on throughout life. However, in the Soviet years for several reasons, including fear of accusations of formalism, he ceased to exhibit his paintings, they re-opened to the public only in the 1970's. Lack of social order in the field of painting allowed the master to focus on the uncensored artistic problems. Painting Kravchenko more than his other works is inherent in the timeless nature, they are features of the romantic vision of the author.

A. Kravchenko, started as a painter: the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1904-1910), he attended workshops V. Serov , K. Korovin , Mikhailovich Vasnetsov , and in 1905, when because of the revolutionary Event classes were suspended, he studied at the Art School Shimon Holloshi in Munich. In his student years at one of the landscapes was awarded the I. Levitan, later earned the praise Ilya Repin , had success at exhibitions and in the circle of collectors. Nevertheless Kravchenko became the successor of the painterly tradition of Moscow looking to plenerizmu - on the contrary, it is focused on the classical European artistic culture.

passion for the art of engraving in which the artist realized most fully, emerged after the end of the school and quickly developed into a major profession. Bold innovator, he worked out in the schedule of the author's unique expressive languages suitable to convey the emotional perception of the world. Actively worked in etchings, often using color printing ( «Fountain Villa Borghese», 1916, «Venice. Saint Mark's Square», 1926). From 1919 started woodcuts - woodcut ( «Stradivari in his workshop», 1926, «Dnieprostroy. Dam», 1931). Having mastered this complex technology itself, in early 1920, he became one of the leaders of the Moscow School of woodcuts. On recognition Kravchenko Maitre engraving said awarding him the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Industry in Paris (1925).

The exhibition will show bookplate, fine image thumbnail Kravchenko, illustrations for the works of Pushkin, JW Goethe, Charles Dickens, O. de Balzac, Zweig. Section book graphic outlines the range of preferences of the artist - from tales by ETA Hoffmann, and Nikolai Gogol's prose fiction to the AV Chayanov,

Far from the avant-garde movements and numerous art groups 1910-20-ies, gravitated to the classics, Kravchenko initiated the creation of society «Four Arts». In 1924, it brought together great masters paintings, drawings, sculpture and architecture under the banner of synthesis of the arts. Artist and the practice has combined a deep interest in architecture, often serves as its object the image, with painting, sculpture and graphics. In the era of the plantation master of social realism as if purposely left in the genre of the urban landscape, showing commitment to a specific spatial effects - the reflections of buildings on the water surface, unexpected angles and perspectives, as well as panoramic species, were in perfect Russian «vidopisi» and works miriskusnikov.

exhibition, including more than 170 exhibits, two layers together heritage masters: axiomatic works from museum collections and little known - from the collection of family and private collections. A large section allotted painting is dominated by the early works, including those created on a trip to India and Ceylon (1914), as well as in Saratov, where the artist spent his first post-revolutionary years. The variety of interests express the species Kravchenko of Moscow region and foreign cities, portraits of friends and relatives, still life, landscape and genre sketches, sketches of the nude.

The exhibition is open from September 3 to October 11, 2009.

Source : Press release of the State Tretyakov Gallery