DENISOV-URALSKY Alexey Kuzmich

November 6, 1863 (Yekaterinburg) — 1926 (Usekirko, Finland)

Painter, graphic artist, master of decorative and applied arts

Alexey Denisov-Uralsky was born to a family of miner and self-taught artist, whose works were shown at the exhibitions in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Vienna. He studied art of stone cutting under the guidance of his father. In 1884 he was conferred title of a master of relief handicraft by Yekaterinburg handicraft council. In 1880s he exposed his works of stone at the Ural and Kazan scientific and technical exhibitions, at the World exhibition in Paris (1889), at the International exhibition in Copenhagen.

In 1887 writer D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak advised Denisov-Uralsky to move to St. Petersburg. There he attended classes in the Drawing School under the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (OPKh, 1887–1888). Denisov-Uralsky started to study painting. During traveling through the Urals, he painted a lot of landscapes, depicted many different acts of nature, flora and geological peculiarities of the region. Paintings by Denisov-Uralsky were reproduced in a lot of Petersburg’s magazines and in the open letters of the St. Eugenia’s Community.

Denisov-Uralsky took part in the Spring exhibitions in the halls of the Imperial Academy of Arts (IAKh, 1898, 1899), the exhibitions of the Society of Russian Watercolorists (1895, 1896, 1898, 1908, 1910), and St. Petersburg Society of Artists (1907–1908). Artist’s works were exposed at many international exhibitions. In 1897 he was awarded gold medal for the painting Forest fire at the World exhibition in St. Louis. The personal exhibitions of Denisov-Uralsky were held in Yekaterinburg and Perm (1900–1901), and in St. Petersburg (1902, 1911) entitled Ural and its riches.

Denisov-Uralsky was engaged not only in painting, but also in art of stone cutting; he created inkpots, letterpress, statuettes of semiprecious stones, decorative pictures (mountain landscapes of semiprecious stones on watercolor background) and hills (collections of stones  combined in miniature grottos). He also created jewelry of gold, emerald, ruby and pearls. In mid 1910s he made sculptural caricatures of stone — allegories of countries participating in World War I; the sculptures were shown at the specially organized exhibition in St. Petersburg (1916).
Denisov-Uralsky was a public person; he supported the development of domestic mining industry, care of Ural natural resources. In 1903 he took part in the 1st All-Russian Congress of geology and reconnaissance workers in St. Petersburg. In 1911 he was one of the initiators of calling of a congress of mining industrialists in Yekaterinburg. In 1912 Denisov-Uralsky founded the Society for assistance in development and improvement of craft grinding industry Russkiye Samotsvety (“Russian semiprecious stones”). In 1917 he applied to the Provisional Government with the project of gemstones development.

In late 1910s Denisov-Uralsky lived in his dacha in Finnish village Usekirko near St. Petersburg. In May 1918 he became in emigration, because of the Soviet-Finland border.

At the end of his life Denisov-Uralsky created a series of paintings dedicated to the Urals, worked on relief moulded picture Ural ridge in bird’s eye view. In May 1924 he gifted his art heritage, consisting of 400 paintings, and large collection of minerals and works of stone to Sverdlovsk. However location of a bigger part of this gift is unknown at the present time.

Works by Alexey Denisov-Uralsky are in many museum collections, including the State Russian Museum, Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, Perm State Art Gallery, the State Stone Cutting and Jewelry Art History Museum in Yekaterinburg, the Mining Museum of St. Petersburg State Mining University and others.