Aleksandr Deineka (1899-1969) : an avant-garde for the proletariat

392

II. 

Texts by 

Aleksandr Deineka, 

1918–64

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The Art of Our Days 

1918

D56

Today we want to speak freely and about freedom, on this day of the Union of 

Art Workers, on the holiday of art. We will dress our souls up in holiday clothing 

and spend this day in festive joy. Today we will not curse and maliciously snigger 

at old folks in embroidered uniforms with the mighty rank of professor. We will 

mentally give them a hand and a shake, because these old rough dreams are the 

dead pages of past books. Best to forget about them. We, the dreams of future 

days within the mutinous time of the present, we are not afraid of these rough 

dreams, because we are young, like spring, like our freedom. Now we are free 

in art, but not free superficially and aff ectedly, without the false protests of past 

days, without painted faces, grimacing like clowns and gloating in art.

1

 No, we see 

freedom, it is ours, and that is why I deeply believe in the great art of our days. 

The beautiful art of the present day—it is the most youthful, pure, and splendid 

that we incarnate in it. 

Who is not fascinated by our days? Who remains ambivalent towards them? The 

bright bursts, titanic swings of the proletariat—that is the sun—we want to sketch 

it colorfully with thousands of semi-precious stones, we want to depict this heroic 

struggle of the proletarian masses. 

How pathetic was the artist of gray days, of humdrum life! What could he embody, 

how could he show his people? I speak about the people, because the artist is only 

one of the people. How happy the artist of our people must be today, engaged 

in great constructive work! We want to speak brightly about art—about beauty, 

about that side of our life that drifts with the gaze in a dream of lines and colors 

beneath the rumbling of work, under the clanging and whistling of machines. 

The artist-collective should express itself absolutely clearly with paints, incarnate 

its feelings in temples of the contemporary. 

Our thoughts should be clean, clean and beautiful. 

They should be bright and cheerful, sunny, like freedom. Don’t let the petit bour-

geois taste with its photographs of life, gray and contrary, like ancient rumina-

tions, be found in them. Let them be daring, unfinished, superficially unintelli-

gible. Let the shouts of songs, colors and lines freely clamor from the canvas and 

preposterously show the blockheaded petty bourgeois. Perhaps he will notice 

this holiday dance of colors on canvas, this well-composed succession of lines, 

which speak about the beauty of factories, about the work of collective creations. 

Paintings of the contemporary—a dream, a bright childlike dream, which cannot 

confine itself within the scope of reality . . . For these are fairytales—fairytales of 

the proletariat, creating its bright life. Look deeply into the souls of paintings and 

you will see how clearly, how powerfully they reflect all that the proletariat makes, 

all that it creates. We have fallen in love with our days and our art. This is our life, 

and the great powerful constructive beginning of our laboring people . . .

Before us is a huge task. Amicably, hand in hand, we will boldly undertake it and 

will weave a great previously unseen tapestry from our works on the red back-

ground of our days. Big, loud, bright, like the sun, and beautiful, like a living em-

blem of the revolutionary struggle. 

Hail to the creators of the past, those artists who, like the bright phases in the long 

gray road of art, gave us great images of beauty. To those visionaries, living in the 

gray flat environment of their milieu and seeing diamond dreams of the future. 

They will not be forgotten, and we kindle their faith still more brightly in the one 

bright enormous light of freedom. Their faith is our days. We will forgive all and 

will brightly serve our art—for what can be brighter than freedom and free art? 

1.   Deineka is referring to the antics of the Russian futurists, who painted their faces and adorned themselves with

outlandish clown-like attire [Trans.]. 

Originally published in Russian as Aleksandr Deineka, “Iskusstvo nashikh dnei,” 

Nash den’ (August 19, 1918), 12.

The version here has been translated from the Russian original by Erika Wolf.

On the Question of Monumental Art

1934

D57

In the initial stages of construction, one can almost never observe that color, fac-

ture, and images have a place in architecture. The tasks of the Cultural Revolution 

placed before architects the question of the use of images as an architectural 

element. Yet this phenomenon is still quite new. As a result, Soviet monumental 

painting has still not managed to discover all of its possibilities. With the excep-

tion of the work of Favorskii and Bruni (the Museum for Maternity and Child Care), 

and a youth brigade (the club “Proletarian”), there is practically no Soviet fresco 

art. Even then, those works that exist bear the unconcealed stamp of haphazard-

ness, of lack of practice. Thus, the images of the frescoes of the youth brigade 

display an obvious conflict with the architecture, while the frescoes of Favorskii 

and Bruni were painted in a “happenstance” place. 

Of course, there were experiments on the creation of panels intended for a given 

architecture. I have in mind the design for the factory kitchen in Fili, the work of 

a brigade under my direction. Yet these panels were also executed as a supple-

mentary design element after the construction had been completed, without the 

architect’s participation. 

The fundamental principle acquired from the study of the frescoes of the Renais-

sance and Russian church murals is the organic nature of the relationship of the 

image to the architecture. In all cases, planar or volumetric images help to reveal 

the ideological complex of the architectural surroundings. Hence, architecture 

placed before itself also artistic tasks, which helped to clarify its ideological and 

functional aspects. 

The artists helped to expand the scale of architecture (in depth, in height) by 

means of images paralleling the architecture. Through the artist, the architect 

solved his problem, for example, achieving splendor and pomposity through 

color (palaces). 

If we turn to the Russian icon or church fresco, then besides a purely religious 

impact they also asserted the monumentality of the very architecture—the inten-

sity of the fresco is identical to the thickness of the wall. How the brilliant colorist 

achievements of the Novgorod frescoes strengthen the richness and reverbera-

tion of the architecture!

In bygone days, our architecture was characterized by abstractness of color de-

sign. Quite naturally, our public has begun to protest against the attempts to es-

tablish rationalism in color. 

In the past two years, the most serious tasks have been placed before architec-

ture: Moscow is becoming an exemplary proletarian capitol, and all newly con-

structed buildings should be first and foremost beautiful. This has compelled 

architects to address the cultural heritage, to understand that architecture bears 

a rather significant aesthetic origin. Architects have understood the entire neces-

sity to approach the question of fresco and sculpture. In this respect, the most 

prominent master architects will serve as a praiseworthy example. The architect 

academic I. A. Fomin works very seriously in his studio on experiments with wall 

painting, the new off ices of Narkomzem (by the academic A. V. Shchusev) is be-

ing built with artistic panels, and so forth. An entire group of artists has earnestly 

approached the question. In short, images in architecture have become a burning 

issue of the day. 

The impending collaborative work of artists with architects should flow forth or-

ganically. At any rate, the artists should be at their best for architectural tasks, 

while on the other hand, the architects, when working out a design, should study 

all possibilities for the solution of general complex tasks and all the possibilities 

concealed in painting and in three-dimensional images. 

All of this, of course, gives rise to a single necessary condition: the painter and 

sculptor should be architecturally literate and, on the other hand, the architect 

should seriously study the laws of planar representation. In my practice I person-

ally often have recourse to the advice of architects; the tasks that stand before 

me and my comrades in the brigade impel us to have close working contact with 

architectural studios. In line with the consideration of the spatial and social pur-

pose of architecture, during the elaboration of a project the architect should de-

cide with the artist the concrete possibilities for a greater eff ective solution of the 

entire architectural ensemble. 

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394

Frescoes, panels, the color and texture treatment of walls—all of this provides 

enormous possibilities for work. I am convinced that (once we overcome the 

technical diff iculties) here it will be possible and, without doubt, it will be neces-

sary to make use of outdoor frescoes. Large planes of walls in worker communi-

ties, firewalls, and so forth should be utilized. Clubs, libraries, sports halls are all 

in need of images, which will register our economic and cultural achievements 

for posterity. All these newly emergent moments place before artists the seri-

ous task of experimental laboratory exploration for new fresco materials— the 

most convenient, flexible, and suitable for the constructive possibilities of archi-

tecture. The task stands not only to master the technique of classical fresco, but 

also to explore and master new materials—colored stone, graphite, majolica, and 

so forth—, which should be resolved most freely and with great confidence in the 

artist on the part of the architect. 

With the mastery of technique, especially external technique, quite broad hori-

zons will open up for fresco painting. Thus, for example, in the design of our festi-

vals we could in some places carry out capital work. The money that is presently 

wasted on painting a short-lived panel on cotton could be used more rationally 

and seriously, being directed towards the execution of outdoor frescoes in du-

rable materials. This would also increase the responsibility of the artist. 

Originally published in Russian as Aleksandr Deineka, “K voprosu o monumental’nom iskusstve,” Iskusstvo 4 (1934), 

2–5. 

The version here has been translated from the Russian original by Erika Wolf.

Autobiographical Sketch 

1936

D58

I was born in Kursk in 1899. I grew up outside the town, in the garden, by the river, 

in market gardens. My parents had no time to busy themselves with my upbring-

ing—father and mother went to work early. I remember childhood: a meadow with 

flowers, a river where I began to swim from the age of three, the smell of apples, 

horses, doves. School. After lessons again the river, children, forays into gardens, 

scuff les, the everyday life outside of town, artisan folk, direct and strict laws. We 

bummed around the countryside, angled for fish, hunted; in town we got into 

scuff les with “white collars,” with lordling-high school students. At school, I loved 

mathematics, I did metalwork and drew. I wanted to become an engineer but 

could not aff ord it. At the age of sixteen, I went to the School of Fine Arts of 

Kharkiv. From that moment, I started to lead an independent life. Father, a worker, 

had a disliking for artists and consequently did not help. In Kharkiv, early in high 

school, I went through a period of infatuation with the “isms”—vaguely with im-

pressionism, considerably with symbolism in the provincial manner, right up to 

Čiurlionis.

1

 For a long time I wandered through these “isms.” I am grateful to Pro-

fessor Pestrikov for consistent drilling in classical drawing. 

In Khar’kov, in February 1917 we merrily disarmed the municipal police. Schools 

to some extent discontinued lessons. I began to wander around towns and their 

outskirts. Acquaintance with political literature, party programs, with soldiers, of-

ficers. My works from this period contain the last echoes of my pre-revolutionary 

“isms.” 1918 in Kursk. Preparation for the first anniversary of the October Revo-

lution. First experiments on monumental works. I worked for Narobraz

2

 as an 

instructor; I traveled around the provinces. Germans in the Ukraine, a front-line 

mood. In Kursk an enthusiasm for Leningrad “leftist” tendencies. I propagated a 

bright cubism. 

The off ensive of Denikin. I worked in the Kursk ROSTA; I energetically conducted 

shock campaigns in the city and at the front. The years 1919–20 on the whole 

were years of the most intensive and furious pursuit of work. We toiled 24 hours 

a day and absolutely without meetings, which became the scourge of artists with 

the blossoming of RAPKh.

3

In 1920 I was demobilized from the army and ordered to Moscow to study at 

VKhUTEMAS—the graphic arts faculty. There I became a test subject for trials of 

diff erent programs. The program mess was one thing, the instruction was entirely 

diff erent—we learned largely without supervision. We studied in the library, in mu-

seums, in exhibitions, at disputes, at Mayakovsky’s, at Cheremnykh’s. I studied 

with V. A. Favorskii. Despite the somewhat wild character of the institution in the 

period of my studies, despite the accursed hunger and cold, serious work was 

carried out there on form, composition. 

At the same time I applied myself to production—at printing shops and at the 

magazine 

Bezbozhnik u stanka [Atheist at the Factory Workbench], where I began 

to work in earnest as a magazine artist. 

In 1924 we organized a big discussional exhibition. The participants were students 

of VKhUTEMAS, pupils of the revolutionary educational institute. I exhibited the oil 

Football and a number of magazine drawings. 

In 1925 a group of painters and graphic artists from the discussional exhibition 

(where there were easel artists, decorators and textile artists) founded the society 

OST, which included a few artists of the older generation—Al’tman, Annenkov, 

Shterenberg. With the exception of Shterenberg, the chairperson, the remaining 

older artists did not remain attached to the society. OST was a youth organization, 

and it was truly opposed by AKhRR, but then during NEP the private practical 

artistic training united artists into AKhRR and into OST. AKhRR was based on pre-

revolutionary practice. 

We the young began to work on virgin soil. I worked for the magazines 

Prozhektor 

[Searchlight], 

U stanka [At the Factory Workbench], and in newspapers. I went 

to Donbass and brought material. At the first exhibition of OST, I displayed major 

works: 

Miners, then the following year Building New Factories (State Tretyakov 

Gallery). In 1927–28—

Female Textile Workers (State Russian Museum). The Defense 

of Petrograd (Central Museum of Armed Forces of the USSR). In 1928 I left OST, 

breaking with the leadership on questions regarding the role of production art 

(a hypertrophy of easel painting occurred in OST: the poster, magazine drawing,

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and their role amounted to nothing). Later OST split apart into the so-called pro-

ductivists and purists. We organized the society “October.” At the society’s single 

exhibition I showed posters, graphics and the monumental canvas 

The Shower. I 

continued to work in the press. I illustrated Barbusse’s 

The Fire, made a number of 

children’s books (

The First of May, Commotion, In the Clouds, The Parade of the 

Red Army, and others). I completed a number of posters. I participated in exhibi-

tions of paintings, drawings and posters in Moscow and a number of shows that 

toured the USSR. 

I exhibited posters, drawings, and oils abroad—in Germany, Greece, Austria, Swe-

den, France, Switzerland, Italy and America. 

In 1930–31, I worked at Izogiz as a consultant for posters. I regarded this as social 

work. I was the head of drawing at the Polygraphic Institute. It is somewhat sad, 

that in recent years I have spent so much time in meetings about hundreds of 

questions, so that it is diff icult to work as less and less time remains for it.

The period after April 23, 1932, became for me a critical one in the sense that I am 

not as self-confident as before; I started to make polished works, but I began to 

test, to check myself. 

A trip abroad in 1935 to France, Italy and America showed me that I am less of a 

Westernizer than a number of artists of the so-called Moscow persuasion.

To conclude, I add that art is a diff icult battlefront, all the more diff icult as one 

needs to battle with oneself, to brush aside the admonitions and sermons of juror 

critics. To struggle against the requirements of clients, who by their taste substi-

tute mass art in the place of healthy demands.

To work is diff icult, but I never looked at work as an easy thing—everyday wellbe-

ing, a cozy studio and elementary exercises on canvas still do not give one the 

right to be called an artist. 

1.   Mikalojus Konstanantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911), a Lithuanian symbolist artist and composer [Trans.]. 

2.   This is an alternate acronym for Narkompros, the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment [Trans.]. 

3.   RAPKh = Russian Association of Proletarian Artists [Trans.].

Originally published in Russian as Aleksandr Deineka, “Avtobiograficheskii ocherk” (1936), reprinted in V. P. Sysoev, 

Aleksandr Deineka. Zhizn’, iskusstvo, vremia: literaturno-khudozhestvennoe nasledie (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 

1974) 48–51, and in V. P. Sysoev, 

Aleksandr Deineka (Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1989).

The version here has been translated from the Russian original by Erika Wolf.

Vladimir Vladimirovich 

1940

D59

For you,

                who are now 

                                        healthy and agile, 

the poet, 

                with the rough tongue

                                                          of his posters, 

                has licked away consumptives’ spittle.

1

 

By a snowdrift in hard frost and wearing a nasty sheepskin coat and enormous 

soldier’s boots, I, like many others, tramped across Ukraine and then the RSFSR 

to Mayakovsky’s “Left March.” By hearsay and without seeing examples, we still-

green cubs in the provinces made—both well and badly—drawings for the ROSTA 

Windows to the captions of Mayakovsky. Almost unconsciously, but with great 

fighting fervor, in the work on the Windows in 1919–20 we reconsidered our small 

but already cluttered aesthetic baggage. The form of the catchy verses, on target 

and brief, demanded a similar laconism in representation. Thus a new aesthetic 

was born. This was the first influence of Mayakovsky on our provincial artistic 

formation. 

Mayakovsky’s influence on me was so striking that I was emboldened, for the first 

time in my life, to read his poetry from a tribune before an audience of Red Army 

soldiers. Due to excitement, my throat seized up and I lost my voice. All the same, 

I mastered myself and finished “Left March” to friendly applause. Mayakovsky 

thus forced me to be an orator, as his verses incited debate among the masses. I 

saw Mayakovsky for the first time on Sverdlov Square in Moscow. Tall and skinny, 

in a rather threadbare suit, he stood, leaning with his elbows on the square’s fenc-

ing, standing in a “classical” pose that was typical to him. He seemed to me to be 

quite nervous and tensed, like an athlete after a workout. 

Later on he became warmer, more expansive, well dressed, pointedly calm, feel-

ing himself at home on the tribune, but to this day I am certain that his inner 

condition, despite his external calmness, always remained as nervous and tensed 

as it was in 1920. Seeing him before a presentation, not once did I notice his 

nervousness. Only the enormous will and faith in the righteousness of his cause 

made him so strong, so steadfast at the tribune. Many years later, when working 

on the design of his play, I showed him a variant of the painting of a construction 

that stood on the stage from the fourth tier of the theater balcony. I asked him to 

follow my example, to come closer and lean across the barrier. He answered sim-

ply: “I won’t come close to the edge of the barrier, because I am afraid of heights. 

Yet when flying, I forget about this feeling.” 

When it was necessary, he overcame his human weaknesses by force of will. It 

seems to me that this will was not only his individual quality; it was also a class 

will, which demanded from him this or that decision.

* * *

My recollections of first encounters with Vladimir Vladimirovich are closely tied 

with the VKhUTEMAS, where I went to study. He was often in the workshops. 

Evidently, friendship with young people and an interest in visual form drew him 

there. During the 1920s he did a lot of drawing himself. 

In those years, the Higher Arts Studios were a very distinctive phenomenon. They 

were packed with youth in paramilitary uniforms, having come back from the 

fronts, arriving to the VKhUTEMAS directly from troop transport vehicles and tak-

ing up paintbrushes and clay. They were people without artistic traditions, quite 

disposed to oppose academic and old painting. Worldly-wise people, contempo-

rary in manner of thinking and greedily thirsting for education. Despite the cold 

and malnutrition, this audience was lively, buoyant and persistent in its desire to 

see and learn as much as possible. 

The professors were casual, the majority of a formalist persuasion (“leftists”). 

They were apolitical, experimented with abstraction, and often had no authority 

among the students. 

During these years, it was quite often possible to see crowds of VKhUTEMAS stu-

dents tramping to the Polytechnic Museum, to Moscow University, to the theater

—to literary and other lectures and to debates. Student evenings took place in the 

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