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

Conversation about a Beloved Matter 

1957

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Art is labor, creative work. In this labor, the human need for the beautiful becomes 

apparent. 

I was always drawn to big canvases, so that the person in them would be large-

scale, visible, majestic. 

To speak about art is just as diff icult as to argue about diff erences in the scent 

of apples—Antonovka versus rennet apples on paper. It is necessary to look at a 

painting, to listen to music, to read a book. In the mind of a person, thought is 

formed through words. And the more a person develops, the more diverse and 

rich his vocabulary, the richer the life experience of the artist, the higher his cul-

tural form and colors. With each day a person accumulates experience, becomes 

courageous in actions and wiser towards old age. A good painting lasts tens if 

not hundreds of years. Yet if a picture has a minor, self-seeking theme, then its life 

comes to an end with the closing of an exhibition. Those works survive which fol-

low the old and the new roads, which lead to excellent and heartfelt conversation 

with both the first and the second. 

It is possible to lead heartfelt conversations about what is near, well understood. 

Therefore, pictures should be intelligible, and that means real. They achieve re-

ality by the visual reconstitution of our life. And our life advances by leaps and 

bounds. The look of cities and collective farms changes. Hundreds of new words 

are born. Old words acquire diff erent meanings—“friendship,” “brigade,” “master,” 

“worker,” “state,” “speed.” The conception of space has varied: in Moscow we lis-

ten to a concert in Vladivostok, in Peking. Students travel thousands of kilometers 

to help at collective farms—to gather a fertile harvest. Sometimes we reach a 

dead end before the impossibility of rendering this in a picture, but there where it 

is possible to find images, we deeply feel that they demand other aesthetic mea-

sures, other compositional or painterly qualities. 

We artists find ourselves in great debt before the people when we think little 

about this, when we do not represent the novelties that have come into being 

over the last forty years, and chiefly when we work little on images of our Soviet 

people, who have begun to think more widely, to see further afield. 

Art possesses an amazing quality: to reconstitute the past. Art loves to look into 

the future, visually showing it. Yet this is not only the privilege of art, but also of 

the very person [who practices art]. If he does not dream, does not build plans 

for tomorrow, then he does not build life. The young dream most of all, perhaps 

because they deeply feel and keenly react to all that is new—the good and the 

bad. Hence, every artist fawns upon the words of youth. Through the young he 

verifies power of his mastery. Yet youth should always remember what it wants—

but that does not mean that it can. It is necessary to love, and to know aff airs, in 

order to have one’s own opinion about it. Because precisely aff airs and actions, 

not words, are the criteria of our possibilities. Thinking about a future picture, I 

often dream about how well it should turn out. Yet in the working process it can 

happen that the idea does not achieve convincing expression, does not become 

a “living word,” and what was necessary does not appear. I am for experience, 

therefore, all the time and in everything. 

It is fascinating to carry out conversations and discussions with youth, but it is 

also very diff icult. Today’s eighteen year old was two when the war started, but 

we saw with our own eyes what a calamity that was. When I painted Defense of 

Moscow and Defense of Sevastapol, I was a conscious participant in these events. 

I lived through them myself. The great and honorable role of the artist is to cor-

rectly show in art the heroics of those days. Few witnesses and participants of the 

October battles of 1917 remain. I managed to paint the picture 

Defense of Petro-

grad, where I executed several portraits of its participants, and I am thrilled with 

this. All of this became history, but a living history that gave us all the possibility 

to be contemporaries of the great constructions, to fight for peace, for world 

records, for a strong family, to paint pictures of our new life.  

From an early age, I loved to wander about the neighboring forests and country-

side, to see how people lived and how the grain ripened. I traveled much in cit-

ies, sailed on steamships and yachts, worked in mines and factories. I was drawn 

in the direction of the healthy work and leisure of people. Within me there was 

always a desire to remember all of this, to draw. That is how the themes of the 

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paintings were born. During the Civil War, I had to wander for some time in the 

heat and in the severe cold along Russian country roads and to see much sorrow. 

Yet I never regretted it, as I learned something new, even if it was bad. This helped 

me to earn my bread and to stand strongly on my feet, but mainly to accumulate 

the life experience from which I drew and still draw the subjects of my pictures. 

I am depressed by [today’s] young, who are afraid to tear themselves away from 

mama and papa. I always tried to understand everything, in order then to convey 

my impressions in artistic images. But now, in my old age, I am most of all afraid 

to be a moralist and to rest on my laurels. Sincerely speaking, each day yields so 

much that is new that the “eyes wander.” One does not know what and how to 

select from our surroundings, in order to start a new drawing. Visually speaking, 

the trouble of many artists of the older generation is that on the roads of art they 

prefer signs that restrict but do not indicate. True, one cannot manage without 

the first, but the second are even more necessary. 

When, if not during one’s youth is the time to test, to search for expressive bold 

words and images, the most heartfelt and experienced? Our country needs many 

artists, “good and varied,” as Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky once said. It 

needs poems and paintings that stick in the memory; music that you want to lis-

ten to again; books that will be read to tatters. The people deserve this.

Regardless, I like a person in a broad gesture, a person in athletic or working 

movement, breathing deeply. In landscapes, I love spaciousness, high skies, clear 

distant horizons. As a painter, I crave for halftones in contrast with local color. The 

novelty of unexpected color attracts me, it is more memorable. I try to capture 

abrupt movement and color contrasts with compositional rhythm. Yet most im-

portantly, I find the themes of my pictures in life. I expend much of my energy on 

this. There is a diff erent kind of painting, built upon conversions to halftones of 

the peaceful poses of people. I recognize the right of such painting to exist; many 

like it. I therefore conclude that not everyone likes my art. 

I have always had a taste for big canvases, just as some of my comrades are 

drawn to intimate ones. I reckon that art is meant to decorate our life, to enrich it 

spiritually, in the same way that painting makes architecture more majestic and 

beautiful. This is probably why I painted theaters, panels for exhibitions, and cre-

ated mosaics for the metro with special enthusiasm. With great trepidation, I ap-

proached the mosaic portraits of the great scholars of the world for the main en-

trance of the university building at Lenin Hills. I made sixty such portraits, among 

them Newton, Lomonosov, Darwin, Mendeleev, Sechenov, Leibnitz, Leonardo da 

Vinci, the Chinese scholar Li Shizhen and others. 

Recently there was an exhibition of my work in Moscow. 

Picture after picture, hall after hall showed what excited me, what I loved, at what 

I intently gazed. Thus I painted my motherland and her sons, and so I like to think 

that the exhibition showed not only my personal work, but also a bit of the great 

things that were and are managed by my fathers and brothers—the sons of the 

great fatherland. 

Originally published in Russian as Aleksandr Deineka, “Razgovor pro liubimoe delo,” 

Iunost’ 8 (1957).

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

A Living Tradition 

1964

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. . . It seems that not long ago I wandered along the side streets of Old Arbat, 

observing an exclusive life, grand mansions. Yet today, traveling by car in the new 

regions of the capitol, I can’t manage to see everything, to remember a great 

deal. The old Kaluga road has changed from a series of villages into a magnificent 

motorway, along the sides of which have risen up new enormous buildings. It is 

like that all the way to Vnukovo airport and much, much further. Along the Len-

ingrad road in All Saints [Boulevard] chickens wandered around where cars now 

roar along, where institutes, schools and the metro have risen up. 

Thus, they stretch out in every direction; the network of roads goes to the ring 

road and further, to the new outskirts of the capital. Powerful trucks haul the pan-

els of future buildings and components for bridges; they haul technical equip-

ment to state farms. I want to rise up high, in order to see a little more, to perceive 

the new horizons, the new forms and the new life. 

The limits of the real are becoming broader, we get to know and win the secrets of 

nature. We have seen the far side of the moon for the first time. Our cosmonauts 

have feasted their eyes upon the Earth from the cosmos and found it to be beauti-

ful. That which was a dream has become reality. The brilliant artist Leonardo da 

Vinci could only dream about flight, but we dream and fly. 

Life is especially good in the spring, especially during May Day—the world work-

ers’ holiday. This holiday, fighting in spirit, peaceful in aspiration, is a day when 

there is special faith in great friendship and happiness. On Red Square, we heard 

the powerful rumble of defense technology. We saw the measured tread of our 

soldiers. Sportsmen passed by with light steps. The merry hubbub of the Pioneers 

rang above the square. We saw an endless stream of people, walking by the Mau-

soleum in which lies the great Lenin. How much each of us on this day pondered, 

wished for success and good fortune for our scientists, builders, students, our 

factory and field workers, and for the people of multiform Soviet art. 

For us artists, the May holiday is doubly excellent—as persons marching in step 

with the people and as masters beautifying this holiday. Artists adorned the 

squares and prospects; they dressed the columns of marchers in beautiful cloth-

ing. Everyone loves spring, but artists love it even more strongly, so in their paint-

ings they preserve this splendid May Day for a long time. 

Attentively, patiently, lovingly, the broadest circle of people follows our creativity 

and helps Soviet art ceaselessly to accumulate successes. The profound human-

ity of the everlasting ideas of Lenin, his concern about monumental propaganda 

imparts to art a special democratic nature, it is realized in the grandeur of images, 

comprehensible to ordinary people far beyond the limits of the Soviet Union. 

Paintings, frescoes, the adornment of the cities and everyday life—all should be 

pierced through with a profound national spirit and with beauty. In these days, 

I received many telegrams and letters from acquaintances and strangers, from 

near and far, from Kamchatka and Paris, from Chelyabinsk and Rome, from Mur-

mansk and Tbilisi, Kursk and Berlin. These were congratulations in connection 

with my being awarded a Lenin Prize. 

Perhaps for the first time, I, like many of us artists, perceptibly felt how many 

people among us love the monumental art which adorns our new cities and ex-

presses the broad humanism and greatness of communist ideas. 

I, like all of us, love my Motherland with her fields, forests, noisy cities and roads, 

upon which people go to the future. As an artist, I see very sharply the birth of 

new cities with parks, kindergartens, educational institutes and stadiums. I see 

how youth mature, how upon the faces of the youth appear traits of character, 

will, responsibility for their own aff airs and for the common cause before their 

friends, fathers and the Motherland. 

Yet I do not only see, I want to convey what is seen in paintings and mosaics. I am 

gladdened when my works bring joy to young and old. In this is a living tradition 

of the unity and friendship of generations, which helps the art of socialist realism. 

Originally published in Russian as Aleksandr Deineka, “Zhivaia traditsiia,” 

Pravda (May 4, 1964).

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

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III. 

Texts about 

Aleksandr Deineka, 

1957

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The Artist of Modernity 

1957

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Evgenii Kibrik 

Rarely does it pass that one is able to admire another’s creativity as much as when 

one attends an exhibition of works by A. Deineka.

It seems to me that the viewer cannot help but be captured by an art so manly and 

bravely forward looking, an art created by the very breath of our epoch.

This is the breath of a builder, an athlete, a warrior, whose mighty heart tensely 

beats in the process of labor, of struggle to overcome obstacles.

Deineka is a Soviet artist. His creativity cannot be separated from the Soviet sys-

tem. His worldview, perspective on life, themes and artistic language, which as a 

whole determine an artist’s creation, were birthed by the years of revolution, the 

years of the formation and development of the Soviet state, by [this state’s] in-

imitable originality. Nothing comparable could occur in pre-revolutionary art. He 

is a new Russian Soviet artist, our talented contemporary, [as reflected] in each 

of his creations. The interests and emotions of the Soviet people, their labor and 

struggle—all of these form the content of this exhibition.

Already at the start of the 1920s, Deineka was one of the first Soviet artists to cre-

ate a large series of works devoted to the working class.

In these highly interesting works there is the rhythm of labor, a revolutionary po-

etry that is close to the poetic voice of Mayakovsky.

It was the epoch of industrialization, enamored with technology, and the struggle 

for mastery that decided the destiny of our country and shaped the art of Deineka.

The years of the Great Patriotic War and the subsequent period clearly gave rise 

to new stages in his art.

Everything that Soviet people aim and fight for appears wonderful to him. He 

uses his art to ardently protest and fight against all that is hostile to the ideas of 

communism, to the peaceful work of our people. New ideals give birth to a new 

aesthetics, which is what makes the art of Deineka so original. He loves the coarse 

folds of workers’ overalls, the industrial landscape, the clean walls of modern 

apartments with large windows, which let in so much air and light. He especially 

loves the beauty of the athletically developed bodies of working lads and lasses, 

who represent a new type of hero, unknown in the art of the past.

Deineka’s heroes are people healthy in body and soul, full of courage and energy, 

sure of themselves and their place on earth. They know with certainty what they 

are living for; they are full of the strength and joy of existence.

Deineka’s art is modern to the highest degree. It is an art of the time of the power-

ful development of technology, of cultural living conditions and rapid changes.

It is characterized above all by two main traits—broad generalization and dyna-

mism, the intense rhythm and tempos in which the characters of Deineka’s paint-

ings live and function.

Deineka’s artistic generalization is a sure and independent view on life, a view 

which broadly embraces the subject and decisively notes the main idea, directly 

striving towards its goal—towards artistic knowledge. This is why his works are so 

directly expressive.

Deineka’s art possesses a rare quality: it has style, in other words it has that origi-

nal integral aesthetic conception which allows one to artistically solve any prob-

lem in fine art.

This is why the creative practice of Deineka is so aesthetically universal. Remaining

true to itself, it easily works in such areas as easel painting, monumental painting, 

illustration, poster, mosaic, sculpture, and easel drawing.

His art has a firm foundation; it contains its own laws and logic. This is obviously 

connected to the exceptional wholeness of the artist’s creative nature.

Deineka’s art, like every progressive art, is based on form—on plastic qualities and 

drawing.

It transmits not an impression of a subject, but rather almost instantaneous 

knowledge of it, striving to achieve expressiveness by the shortest route. This is 

where the energy, the courage with which he meets his challenges comes from. 

Specifically, he meets these challenges artistically, instead of simply representing 

the life around him.

In Deineka’s art a volitional basis predominates. He is never passive, never cop-

ies nature. He always retains the initiative of design, which comprises his under-

standing of nature, his relationship with it. The artist through his creative eff orts 

expresses his clear opinion about things that attract his attention. What Deineka 

wants to say in this or that work is always clear to the viewer. Deineka’s work 

leaves one with a feeling of forcefulness and activity that remains with one after 

viewing the exhibition.

This exhibition, despite the fact that it fills many halls of the Academy of Art, 

shows only a certain part of what this master has created.

The enormous number of works by his hand which are sadly absent from the 

exhibition come to mind. A great number of anti-religious drawings done for the 

magazines 

Bezbozhnik [Atheist] and Bezbozhnik u stanka [Atheist at the Factory 

Workbench], illustrations for various books, a large series of works brought from 

his visit to America and Europe, and, in the first place, his wonderful painting 

Boredom, his frescoes, mosaics, paintings and sculptures.

An artist of enormous scope, [Deineka is] a great and surprising artist of whom 

Soviet art may be proud.

Originally published in Russian as Evgenii Kibrik, “Khudozhnik sovremenosti,” 

Literaturnaia gazeta [The Literary News-

paper], May 18, 1957.

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

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The Artist’s Path 

(1957)

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Iurii Pimenov 

When we see before us the works of an artist who spends his whole life living with 

a true, passionate interest in his topic, a topic which is interesting to all those 

around him, then we do not want to speak in narrow artistic terms and meanings, 

we want to think and live with a deep feeling of art.

This is the feeling that the paintings of Aleksandr Deineka inspire.

When we look at Deineka’s early works, the youth of the Soviet state, the youth of 

our generation stands before our eyes. The country had just begun building its 

heavy industry, the hot breath of creation wafted through life. A young artist drew 

transparent constructions of new factories, figures of strong workers from the 

many building projects of the First Five-Year Plan with unabashed passion. New 

feelings and new understandings entered everyday life, previously unseen tech-

nical inventions directly entered reality. Moscow was under construction; new 

floors renovated its great old buildings. In this asphalt cauldron, the street urchins 

of F. Bogorodskii could not hide; the construction noise resounded through the 

streets of Moscow.

It was through this Moscow, torn up and littered with bricks, that the gaunt run-

ners of Deineka, new to life and art, ran. They ran from the new life into the new 

art, against a background of bright buildings, towards the newly appearing stadi-

ums, towards the wide water reservoirs of tomorrow, whose waters the yachts of 

G. Nisskii

1

 would later crisscross at sharp angles.

The multifaceted, strong life of our country, with all its achievements and mis-

takes, joys and disappointments, continued to move forward, and in step with her 

marched this talented, brilliant artist, always passionate about his time. The art of 

Deineka is an energetic, eff ective and manly art.

All great ideas require in their time a new space, a new form of expression, not be-

cause the old form is simply not needed, but because it is insuff icient to express 

new feelings. As life evolves, so does art.

If some craftsperson, struggling to be contemporary, begins in a drawing of an 

ornament or a mural to include jackhammers, open-hearth furnaces, oil derricks, 

and, neither understanding nor loving them, decorates them with ribbons and 

laurels, with flowing fabrics and wreaths, then, without a doubt, he feels neither 

life nor art.

You cannot fake the feeling of modernity. Deineka has it in spades. As is the case 

for any genuine artist, his creative path is full of searches, which contain both vic-

tories and mistakes, even when his works are fussy or sometimes excessively dry. 

Even in the weak works of this artist, real interest in life shines through without fail.

In works of art the dearest qualities, first and foremost, are thought and feeling. It 

is impossible to compare the joy of impact of real figurative art to small and nar-

row professional amusements.

The new reality found its true figurative expression in Deineka’s art. This art is al-

ways interested in ongoing, developing life—it forms the guarantee of success for 

artists of this living type, it contains the character of their talent.

Strong miners ascend from a mineshaft, the motley figures of skiers are drawn on 

the forest snow with new silhouettes, the bright powerful figures of participants 

in a holiday demonstration emerge onto the large panel of the international exhi-

bition in Paris, sad black men gaze up from the artist’s foreign canvases, the raw 

days of the brutal conflicts of war appear before the viewer, and behind all of this 

are the artist’s thoughts and feelings.

In mosaic and bronze, in paintings and watercolors, in the ornamentation of a lat-

tice and in stage decoration, Deineka always remains a modern artist.

Many years of great life have passed and many new, real, deep art works have been 

created. The full-blooded paintings of A. Plastov and cast forms of P. Korin, the 

delicate art of S. Gerasimov and S. Chuinov, from B. Ioganson to M. Sar’ian, from 

V. Favorskii to D. Shmarinov, from S. Konenkov to S. Lebedeva, all have formed 

into mature phenomena and blossomed in the diversity of Soviet art. Deineka’s 

place is always in the front row of those marching forward; his art is always inter-

esting and new. From 

Defense of Petrograd to Defense of Sevastopol, from the 

swimming lads of the Donbass region to the young 

Tractor Driver, he follows the 

good path of the real Soviet artist.

1.  Grigorii Nisskii (1903–1987) was a painter and leading Moscow yachtsman, who worked closely with Deineka in 

the 1930s.

Originally published in Russian as Iurii Pimenov, “Put’ khudoznikia,” 

Ogonek 32 (1957).

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

 

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