Aleksandr Deineka (1899-1969) : an avant-garde for the proletariat
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January. The Second Moscow Trial of the Great Purge opens; seventeen members of the Party are charged. Thirteen are sentenced to death and executed while the remaining four are sent to con- centration camps. In a secret military trial held on June 12, several Red Army generals are sentenced and executed, Mikhail Tukhachevskii among them.
lives with his family at the home of the Kahlo family in Coyoacán until 1939.
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(We, 1924), Evgenii Zamiatin, dies in Paris. 1938 May 5. The exhibition 20 Years of the Workers and Peasants Red Army (RKKA) and the Navy opens in Moscow, including the two paintings Deineka was commissioned to produce.
Arkhitek- turnaia gazeta, Deineka is working on sketches for the main hall of the planned Palace of the Soviets (which is never built). One of the walls was to be dedicated to the Red Army and the Civil War. August 31. Deineka agrees to draw a sketch for a mosaic panel on the subject of “On Stalin’s Path” to be displayed in the main room of the Soviet Pavilion at the World’s Fair exhibition in New York in 1939. As Deineka was behind schedule, the com- mission is eventually given to the painter Vasilii Efanov and a brigade of artists. (Deineka’s sketch, also known as Stakhanovites, is in the collection of the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, Moscow.)
metro station, designed by the architect Aleksei Dushkin. The vaults of the platform are decorated with thirty-five mosaic panels by Deineka on the theme of “A Day and Night in the Land of Soviets,” representing garden, factory, sport, aviation and construction scenes. Deineka illustrates the children’s book Cherez po- lius v Ameriku (Across the North Pole to America) by the pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union Georgii Baidukov. January 17. Gustavs Klucis is arrested in Moscow. He is executed on Stalin’s order several weeks later. Deineka’s first spouse, the artist Pavla Freiburg, was also arrested that year and would die during her imprisonment a few months later.
nearly twenty people are charged with allegedly belonging to a bloc of “Rightists and Trotskyites” led by Nikolai Bukharin, former chairman of the Comintern, and ex-prime minister Aleksei Rykov. They are all found guilty and executed. March 17. The ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev is born in Irkutsk (Siberia). September 17. The Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev, who had been a proponent of the New Economic Policy, is sentenced to death and ex- ecuted in Siberia. December 27. The poet Osip Mandel’shtam dies in a labor camp outside Vladivostok. 1939 March 18. Opening of the exhibition The Industry of Socialism, in which Deineka displays several works, including At the Women’s Meeting and Bom- bovoz (Bomber). It was initially under the direction of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Head of the People’s Com- missar for Heavy Industry, who committed suicide before the show opened. Featuring 1,015 works by 479 artists, the exhibition was the largest ever organized in the USSR.
World’s Fair in New York, designed by the archi- tects Boris Iofan and Karo Alabian. Two works by Deineka are featured in the exhibition, Lenin on an Outing with Children and Future Pilots, but it is the large-scale reproduction of a fragment of the vaults of the Maiakovskaia metro station with Deineka’s mosaics that catches the audience’s attention. The project wins a Grand Prize. August 1. The All-Union Agricultural Exhibition is inaugurated in Moscow to commemorate the tenth anniversary of collectivization and to celebrate its achievements. The event was later renamed Exhibition of Achievements of the National Econ- omy (VDNKh). Deineka works in collaboration with other artists on two wall paintings, Quarrel over 1 2 3 4 Fundación Juan March paint a picture of something real . . .” (A. Deineka, Life, Art, Time, 161). October 16. Deineka’s mother, Marfa Pankratova, dies during the German occupation of Kursk and is interred at the Muscovite cemetery in Kursk.
Committee of the Council of People’s Commissars to complete the enormous canvas the Defense of Sevastopol by February 1, 1943.
Bilibin, creator of the distinctive “Bilibin style” in book illustration, dies during the Siege of Lenin- grad.
Summer. The German army launches an off ensive in southern Leningrad, the outskirts of the city of Kharkiv and the Crimean peninsula.
leading exponent of religious symbolism, dies in Moscow. Mikhail Kalashnikov designs the AK-47 assault rifle, the first automatic firearm. 1943 February 23. Opening of the exhibition The Battle of the Red Army against the German Fascist Invad- ers at the Central House of the Red Army in Mos- cow; Deineka displays his Defense of Sevastopol. November 20. The Novokuznetskaia metro station opens in Moscow featuring seven mosaic panels by Deineka.
Battle of Stalingrad, the bloodiest battle of the Second World War.
in the United States. July – August. The Battle of Kursk, the greatest tank battle in history, marks the beginning of the Soviet advance.
Moscow Fellowship of Artists (MTKh) to produce a “synthetic project” combining sculpture, frescoes, mosaics and other media as a monument to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.
his 1943 painting The Shot Down Ace.
Gallery featuring six major Soviet artists: Deineka, Sergei Gerasimov, Pet’r Konchalovskii, Sara Leb- edeva, Vera Mukhina and Dementii Shmarinov. August 23. Deineka signs a contract with the Direc- torate of Art Exhibitions and Panoramas to produce a massive painting with the title Parachute Jumpers (6 x 4 meters) for the sum of 60,000 rubles.
lution, Deineka is awarded a Prize of Honor by the leadership of the Moscow Union of Soviet Artists (MSSKh) for his social engagement during the Sec- ond World War.
tional anthem composed by Aleksandr Aleksandrov with lyrics by Sergei Mikhalkov and Gabriel’ El’-Reg- istan, replacing The Internationale as the national anthem.
June 22. The Soviet army conducts Operation Bagration with the aim of expelling the Germans from the Belorussian SSR and eastern Poland.
sur-Seine, France. 1945 March 9. Deineka is appointed director of the Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts (MIPIDI, founded the previous year) by decree Boundaries and The Peasant Revolt of 1905 (both no longer extant). Deineka takes up work as a sculptor and begins to work with ceramics, porcelain and majolica.
non-aggression, commonly referred to as the Molo- tov-Ribbentrop Pact.
of the Second World War. November 30. The conflict between Russia and Finland known as the Winter War begins. A peace treaty is signed in March of the following year ac- cording to which parts of Finland and its industry are ceded to the Soviet Union.
with Mayakovsky are published in the magazine Iskusstvo (issue no. 3).
board of directors of the combined Moscow Paint- ers and Sculptors Union.
work on mosaics for the Paveletskaia metro station in Moscow, Deineka signs an agreement with the Board of Construction of the Palace of the Soviets (USDS) according to which he will correct the car- toons made from his sketches at the Leningrad mo- saic workshop. Of the sixteen mosaics that Deineka designed for the Paveletskaia station, seven were eventually installed, instead, in the Novokuznets- kaia station that opened in 1943. June 29. Deineka is given the title of “professor” of Monumental Painting at the Moscow State Institute of Fine Arts (MGKhI).
ing the Red Army Theater informs Deineka that the government commission has not approved his ceil- ing mural and will therefore not pay him the 10,000 rubles agreed to on the condition he finish the project. (The circumstances surrounding Deineka’s involvement in the project remain unclear, but his mural
The Cross-Country Race of Red Army Sol- diers continues to decorate the theater to this day). The State Literature Museum commissions a large- scale painting based on the poem Levyi marsh (Left March)
by Mayakovsky. Deineka illustrates the book Nasha Aviatsia (Our Aviation) by the pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union, Il’ia Mazuruk.
death brings to an end his most celebrated novel, Master i Margarita (The Master and Margarita), which he had begun to write ten years earlier and had rewritten several times. It is not published until 1966
. April 3 – May 19. Approximately 22,000 Polish nationals are executed by the Soviet Army in the Katyn massacre.
having been attacked by Ramón Mercader, a NKVD agent. The six-day work week is implemented; those absent from work or responsible for defective manufacture are criminally liable. 1941 January 1. Deineka enters an agreement with the Economy and Art Department of the Board of Construction of the Palace of the Soviets by which he commits to advise the project’s artists and architects forty-eight hours per month, at a salary of 2,000 rubles per month. October 10 – March 1942. Deineka works for the Tass Windows Military Defense Poster Workshop (Okna TASS), producing political posters on de- fense themes and leading a group of poster artists. October 18. Deineka is dismissed from the Moscow State Institute of Fine Arts on “a protracted leave of absence with the right of reinstatement.”
where Deineka’s mother and sister live. He con- cludes The Outskirts of Moscow. November 1941, the first of a series of paintings that chronicle the war,
Sverdlov Square in December 1941, The Mos- cow Manezh 1941, Anxious Nights (1942), Burnt- Down Village (1942) and others.
German army invades the USSR, marking the be- ginning of the conflict between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany known as the Great Patriotic War, a name that first appeared in the newspaper Pravda on June 23. July 10. Beginning of the blockade of Leningrad, which lasts 900 days. August 31. The poet Marina Tsvetaeva commits suicide in Elabuga (Tatarstan). October 30. Beginning of the heroic defense of Sevastopol, which lasts eight months. 1942 February. Deineka and the painter Georgii Nisskii are sent to the front line near Iukhnov by the management of the RKKA. The sketches Deineka produces are presented at the exhibition Moscow Artists in the Days of the Great Patriotic War. Early July. Following the defeat of the defense of Sevastopol, Deineka writes: “I saw a horrifying photo in a German newspaper. A beauty of a city was mutilated. It reminded me of my Future Pilots who also defended their hometown, the women and children who experienced the horrors of the siege. That moment, when I painted the picture of the defense of Sevastopol, has been erased from my consciousness. I lived with only one wish: to 1. Aleksandr Deineka. Portrait of Irina Servinskaya, 1937. Oil on canvas, 70.7 x 60.3 cm. Kursk Deineka Picture Gallery 2. Aleksandr Deineka in front of one of the no longer extant frescoes of the
1st All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (later renamed Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy [VDNKh]), Moscow, 1939
ca. 1940 4. Drawings of soldiers in the outskirts of Moscow during the Great Patriotic War of 1941. Illustration from Aleksandr Deineka’s book,
On My Working Practice, 1969 [cat. 248] Fundación Juan March
22 Relay Race on the Garden Ring Road, on the basis of a track race he witnesses near his house .
foreigners is prohibited (until 1954).
1950).
As part of the 800th anniversary celebration of Moscow, foundations are laid for eight skyscrapers. Seven of them, known as “Stalin’s High-Rises” or the “Seven Sisters,” are eventually erected over the next ten years.
Committee of the Communist Party is published in the newspaper Pravda in an article entitled “On the opera The Great Friendship by V. I. Muradeli,” marking the beginning of an ideological campaign against formalism in music. As described by Boris Nikiforov in his memoirs of Deineka: “The wave of pogroms
against writers . . . musicians and com- posers . . . reached our Institute (MIPIDI) . . . All of a sudden, in the middle of the school day, the bell rang and we were assembled in the main hall . . . A speech on the influence of formalism in Soviet art began, the names were disclosed: the sculptor Zelenskii, Vladimir Favorskii, Andrei Goncharov. Deineka was not mentioned but it was implied . . .” (S. I. Nikiforov, “Vospominaniia o velikom mastere. ‘To, chto ostalos v pamiati’,” in Problema sovetsko- go iskusstva 1930 – 50 [Kursk, 1999], 151). March 24. Deineka resigns as chair of the Monumental Painting Department of the Surikov Institute. number 112 of the Committee on the Arts of the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK) of the USSR.
Figure of the Arts” of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Deineka to travel to Berlin with fellow Russian art- ists and writers. He paints a series of watercolors entitled Berlin 1945 depicting the defeated city.
evelt and Stalin, meet at the Yalta Conference to discuss their war plans.
render and signs the agreement before the Marshal of the Red Army Georgii Zhukov, marking the end of Great Patriotic War. The triumph of the Allies and the Soviet Union, known as Victory Day, is cel- ebrated on May 9. Premiere of the first part of the Ivan the Terrible trilogy of films, directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
All-Union Art Exhibition opens at the State Tretyakov Gallery, featuring Deineka’s paintings Parachute Jumpers, The Wide Expanse and others. March 9. He receives off icial confirmation of his title of “professor” of Monumental Painting at the MGKhI. Deineka is commissioned by the Directorate of Art Exhibitions and Panoramas to produce two paint- ings, on the subjects of the reconstruction of the Donbass and sport, for the sum of 90,000 rubles.
Year Plan for Russia” in Moscow and declares capi- talism and communism “incompatible.”
(Alekhine) dies in Estoril, Portugal. Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov initiates a new period of cultural conformity and oppression known as the “Zhdanovshchina” with the persecution of magazines that published the “individualistic” and “apolitical” works of Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko; the two au- thors are banned from the Union of Writers.
Vienna, where he attends the exhibition Works of Art by Soviet Masters (Deineka, Sergei Gerasimov, Aleksandr Gerasimov and Arkadii Plastov): “The exhibition is going well. It seems everyone prefers surrealism here. We appear to be somewhat aca- demic. There are many exhibitions here. An exhi- bition of French contemporary painting—mainly Picasso and Chagall—has just closed, it is one-eyed painting, all cubes and intestines” (catalogue of the exhibition at the State Tretyakov Gallery [Moscow, 2010], 222). In the meantime, the press in Vienna printed: “Aleksandr Deineka’s art is the most similar to Western painting. Firstly, he is a landscape art- ist.” He produces a series of watercolors represent- ing Vienna.
Sculpture at the MIPIDI, where he is also the direc- tor.
Deineka a member of the recently created Acad- emy of Fine Arts of the USSR, which replaces the All-Russian Academy of Fine Arts. During a commissioned trip to the Donbass, he paints Donbass [cat. 243]. This year he also paints 1 2
4 5 6 Fundación Juan March 1952 March 15. The exhibition N. V. Gogol in the Works of Soviet Artists. Dedicated to the Centenary of the Writer’s Death, 1852–1952 opens at the exhibition hall of the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Artists. Deineka is invited by the President of the Academy of Fine Arts of the USSR, Aleksandr Gerasimov, and the head of the Commemoration Commission, Evgenii Kibrik, to participate in the show. He presents his recently completed paint- ing Ekh troika, ptitsa-troika . . ., a line from Gogol’s poem Mertvye dushi (Dead Souls, 1842). Deineka takes on an additional teaching post as the head of the Composition Faculty at the Moscow Textile Institute. He completes a commission to produce a large painting with the title The Opening of the Kolkhoz Electric Station [cat. 244] for the Central Pavilion of the USSR at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.
history with a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale occurs off the Kamchatka Peninsula. The campaign against “cosmopolitanism” leads to a new wave of repression against the intelligentsia, particularly Jews. 1953 Deineka designs ceiling murals and other decora- tive details for the Chelyabinsk Opera and Ballet Theater, a commission he was off ered through the intercession of a former student from MIPIDI. He is assisted in the project by several former students. He becomes professor and director of the Drawing Department at the Moscow Institute of Architec- ture, a position he holds until 1957.
Khrushchev. Deaths of the composer Sergei Prokofiev (March 5), the artist Vladimir Tatlin (May 31) and the writer Ivan Bunin (November 8).
Nikita Khrushchev, receives a report from the Department of Science and Culture of the CPSU Central Committee concerning “The State of Soviet Art.” The report observed “a formalist and aesthetic spirit has been reignited among painters” and re- ferred to Deineka, Sergei Gerasimov and Martiros Sarian as artists who “had not yet eliminated formalist remnants from their work.”
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