Born 1899, Kursk - Died 1969, Moscow
Painter, graphic artist, sculptor, monumentalist
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography
Note: additional works by this artist may be seen in the Mass and Agit Art category.
Paintings
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Gouache, Indian ink and pencil on paper.
Deineka Kursk Regional Picture Gallery .
Oil on canvas, 77x49 cm.
Vladimir & Suzdal Museum
of History, Art and Architecture.
The Train Has Passed By. 1930.
Warercolor and gouache on paper, 30.5x48 cm.
The State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
A Girl at the Window. Winter. 1931.
Black watercolour and whitening on tinted paper, 64.3x54.2 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Sleeping Boy With Cornflowers. 1932.
Oil on canvas, 67x78 cm.
The Artist's family collection, Moscow.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Watercolour, Indian ink and whitenning on paper, 41.5x34.6 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Sevastopol. The Sea Front. 1934.
Gouache on paper, 42.5x61.8 cm.
The State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg.
Portrait of a Girl with a Book. 1934.
Oil on canvas, 56x61 cm.
The State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Watercolour and gouache on paper, 33.6x56.5 cm.
Deineka Kursk Regional Picture Gallery.
Autumn. Watering the Animals. 1934.
Watercolour, gouache and whitening on paper, 31.1x50 cm.
Deineka Kursk Regional Picture Gallery.
Paris. The Seine Embankment. 1935.
Watercolour and gouache on paper, 38.5x55cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Watercolour and gouache on paper, 38x58cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Philadelphia. The Old Square. 1935.
Oil on canvas, 50.7x75 cm.
Kustodiev Picture Gallery, Astrakhan.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
American Landscape. Roadside Commercial Sign. 1935.
Watercolour and gouache on paper, 38.5x55.5 cm..
The State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Portrait of Serafima Ivanovna Lycheva, the Artist's Wife, in a Straw Hat. 1935.
Oil on canvas, 82x60.5 cm.
The State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Portrait of Serafima Ivanovna Lycheva, the Artist's Wife. 1936.
Oil on canvas, 120.3x53 cm.
Deineka Kursk Regional Picture Gallery.
Portrait of Shervinskaya. 1937.
Oil on canvas, 70.7x60.3 cm.
Deineka Kursk Regional Picture Gallery.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Nearby Kursk. River Tuskor'. 1945.
Oil on canvas, 71.5x100.5 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Evening. The Patriarshie Ponds. Year 1941. From the series "Wartime Moscow". 1946.
Gouache, tempera and charcoal on paper, 61x72 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Evacuation of Kolkhoz Herds. Novodevichy Convent. 1946-1947.
Gouache and tempera on paper.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
At the Seashore. Fisherwomen. 1956.
Oil on canvas, 128x198 cm.
The State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
The Boxer Gradopolov. Sketch for painting of the same name. 1925.
Crayons on paper, 31.1x26.7 cm.
Deineka Kursk Regional Picture Gallery.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Sport. Cover design for Journal "Iskorka" #3, left side.
Pencil and ink on paper, 28.5x33.5 cm.
Deineka Kursk Regional Picture Gallery.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Watercolor on paper, 47.8x57.8 cm.
Central Museum of the Revolution, Moscow.
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Paintings Graphic Work Sculpture & Mosaics Biography Top of Page
Biography:
Alexander Deineka is considered by some the father of the Soviet Official art. And yet, his path was not as straightforward as may seem in that respect.
Alexander Deineka was born May 20th 1899, in a family of a railroad worker in Kursk. From an early age he showed a love and aptitude for drawing, which has brought him in 1915 to enroll into Kharkov Art school, where he studied for two years.
He was but 18 years old when the Great October Revolution has shaken the country, and the young artist has shared enthusiastically the ideas and goals of these changes, as he saw them: the creation of the first egalitarian Proletariat Republic in the world! And he was there, in the first generation of Revolutionary Russia.

Late 1920s.
In 1918 he has returned to Kursk, where he worked as a photographer in the department of Criminal Investigation, and headed a department in the Regional Art Education authority, where he has taken part in decorating Agit-Trains and preparing the festivities of the first Anniversary of the Revolution, participating in the defence of Kursk from the Whites. In 1919-1920 Deineka has enlitsted in the Red Army, where he has headed the Art studio in Kursk GUBONO, he was sent to the front as an Army Mobile Theatre artist. He drew posters for the "ROSTA Windows" in Kursk.
In 1920 Deineka was sent to study in Moscow VKhUTEMAS, under V.Favorsky, who has great influence over his student, and I.Nivinsky, at the Polygraphic Department, where he studied until 1925. Here he has met many of the time's leaders in art, such as V.Mayakovsky.
Together with A.Goncharov and Yu.Pimenov the artist has formed the "Group of Three". And in 1925 he has become one of the founders of the OST movement, alongside D.Shterenberg, Yu. Pimenov, A.Tyshler, P.Williams and others.
In these years he goes on many working trips around the country, which inspire his portrayal of the working people, the proletariat and the technological environment of their work, at their routine tasks: "Before Descending into the Mine", "Constructing New Workfloors", "Textile workers". He illustrated journals and periodicals, such as "Godless at the Workstand", "Projector", "Krasnaya Niva". He also painted portraits and landscapes at that time, trying his hand at various styles.

Making studies in Sevastopol. 1930s.
It seems that as his art matured, Deineka was taken with two major themes: one - the specific, idealistic portrayal of the Soviet people, workers and farmers, soldiers and heroism; the other - almost lyrical, the celebration of young vibrant life, sportsmen and sportswomen with pronounced supple and muscled bodies, chidren in their energetic and youthful innocence. Both these lines have served as the beginning of what was to become the new canons of Oficial Soviet art, too pronounced and stylized to be totally realistic, a somewhat romantic presentation of these exaggerrated robust figures. One subject which doesn't follow these lines is the paintings from his travels abroad.
In 1928, for the 10th anniversary of the Red Army the artist created his "Defence of Petrograd" painting, which captures the intensity of the Civil war. He has continued to depict moments from the Civil war in the "Interventionist Mercenary" and other paintings. and at the same time he creates his most renown paintings: "Midday", "Mother", "Playing Ball", "Bathing Girls", "Running". His working trip to Crimea has made an impression in paintings such as "Future Pilots", radiating calmness and peace with the energy and enthusiasm of the young boys, totally absorbed in watching the hydroplane. Aviation was a favorite theme for Deineka over the years.
In 1928 Deineja has joined the artistic association "October", then in 1930 - of the Russian Association of Proletariat Artists. At this time he taught at the VKhUTEIN (1928-1930) and at the Moscow Polygraphic Institute (1928-1934), where he manages the poster department.
In the years 1935-1937 the artist has visited France, Italy and USA. The paintings of these places are totally different in both style and mood, his color palette shows the specific local tint, uncharacteristic of his Russian work. At the International Exhibition in Paris the artist was awarded a gold medal for his panel "The Noble People of the USSR".
The 1930s were also marked by much monumentalist work for the artist. He created murals and mosaics for public buildings; for the Soviet Pavilion at the Internation Exhibition in Paris in 1934; and the 34 (originally 35) mosaic panneaux for the Metro station Mayakovskaya, in Moscow in 1938. The artist has taught at the Surikov Art Institute of Moscow (1934-1946).

In his workshop. 1964.
When the WWII hit the country, Deineka was once more torn by emotions and fierce pride in the stoicism and heroism of both the Red Army and the Soviet people. This is reflected strongly in his famous "Defence of Sevastopol", "The outskirts of Moscow", "A Village burned Down" and others. The painting "Shot Down Ace" astonishes in its about-to-occur tragedy of a German pilot in mid-fall, whose burning plane has left a scar of smoke across the sky; it horrifies coldly, incompassionately. The mosaics at Metro station Novokuznetzkaya in Moscow were made during the war, in 1943, and their theme was deliberately peaceful. In 1945 Deineka went on a creative visit to Berlin.
After the war, we can see once again the celebration of life in the worker people and their daily tasks, in paintings such as "The Expanse of Construction Sites in Moscow Environs", "Tractor Driver", "Milkmaid"; and in the peaceful, almost lyrical, scenes of Sevastopol and Kursk. He also does sculpture work in various materials. The artist has taught at the Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Art (1945-1953), and has headed it until 1948; then at the Moscow Architecture Institute (1953-1957). He was a member of the Decorative Arts Departments of the USSR Academy of Arts from 1947; served as a member of the Presidium from 1958; then vice-president in 1962-1966; then academician-secretary in 1966-1968.
In the last years of his life, Deineka created almost monumentalist work. In 1956 he created murals for the Opera and Ballet Theatre of Chelyabinsk; made mosaics for Moscow University Assembly Hall. In 1958 he has decorated USSR Pavilion at the International Exhibition in Brussels. In 1961 he participated in decorating the Congress Pallace in the Kremlin. In 1965 worked on a mosaic in a sanatorium in Sochi.
For his mosaics "A Fine Morning" and "Hockey Players" Deineka was awarded Lenin Award in 1964. In 1969 Deineka was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. He was also awarded the Order of Lenin and the Labor Order of the Red Banner.
Several personal exhibitions were held in Kursk in 1960, 1966, 1974; and at the Academy of Arts in 1969. A great deal of his work may be found in the Deineka Picture Gallery in Kursk.
The artist died Jun 12th 1969, in Moscow.




























































































