Aristarkh Vasilyevich Lentulov was a Russian painter of Cubist orientation who stood at the origins of the Russian avant-garde. He was also known as the set decorator for the theatres.
Background
Aristarkh Vasilyevich Lentulov was born on January 16, 1882, in Chernaya Pyatina village, Penza governorate, Russian Empire (currently the part of Ust-Karemsha village, Penza Oblast, Russian Federation). He was a son of a rural priest.
His father died when he was a two-year-old boy.
Education
Aristarkh Lentulov studied at the Theological College and Seminary from 1889 till 1896. However, he wouldn’t like to become a priest like his father and chose the artist’s career instead.
To fulfil this goal, the young man entered Penza Art School (currently the Penza Art School named after K. A. Savitsky) at the age of sixteen. Two years later he left the institution along with some of his fellows dissatisfied with composition course. On September 16, 1901, Lentulov became an irregular student of the Kiev Art School. He was expelled in four years for failed attendance and came back to the Penza Art School where he attended the course of an illustrator Alexey Fedorovich Afanasyev. It was here where Lentulov befriended Vladimir Burliuk.
In 1906, Aristarkh Lentulov failed the entrance examination in the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts. But one of the teachers, Dmitry Nikolaevich Kardovsky, noticed the talented artist and invited him to study at his studio which Lentulov had attended for one year.
In 1910, the young artist went to Paris where he had developed his artistic skills till 1911 at the Académie de la Palette (Palette Academy) and at the studio of Henri Le Fauconnier.
Aristarkh Vasilyevich Lentulov started his career from the participation at various exhibitions at the beginning of the 1900s, such as ‘Wreath’ or ‘Venok’ (1907-1908 in Moscow), ‘Modern trends in art’ (1908 in Saint Petersburg), ‘Link’ or ‘Zveno’ (1908 in Kiev) and ‘Stephanos’ (1909 in Saint Petersburg).
Lentulov travelled a lot around Europe till the beginning of the First World War to explore the art world. In particular, the artist visited Paris in 1910 where during the one-year stint he met such contemporary French painters as Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger and Robert Delaunay. He discovered fauvism and cubism movements which helped him to elaborate his own style by adding to this couple the elements of folk art.
The same year, Aristarkh Lentulov co-founded the art group ‘Jack of Diamonds’ and presented his artworks to its exhibitions.
After the Revolution of 1917, the artist joined the staff of the Board of Fine Arts of the People's Commissariat for Education (or Narkompros). Since then, Lentulov pursued his active participation at the development of art politics in his homeland. He tried his hand as a decorator by creating the design of the first anniversary of the Revolution at the Theatre Square in Moscow and the huge murals for the Poets’ Café.
Besides, the artist worked as a scenographer for such theatrical performances as ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ in the Kamerny Theatre (1916), ‘Prometheus’ by Alexander Scriabin in the Bolshoi Theatre (1919) and others. During his career, he also produced set decoration for the performances by Alexander Tairov, Fedor Komissarzhevsky, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Vladimir Mayakovsky.
In 1919, Aristarkh Lentulov started his teacher’s career at the Russian state art and technical school or VKhUTEMAS. He had held the post until 1925. Afterwards, in 1937, he also taught at the Moscow Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov.
The huge personal retrospective of the artist took place in 1933 in Moscow.
At the end of his life, Aristarkh Lentulov shifted from cubism, futurism and symbolism to realism and painted a great number of landscapes.
Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia
,
Soviet Union
1926 - 1927
Society of Moscow artists
,
Soviet Union
1928
Interests
Artists
Robert Delaunay
Connections
Aristarkh Vasilyevich Lentulov was married twice.
His first wife became Natalia Appolonovna Yachnitskaya. The family produced one son named Appolon who became an actor.
Then, Aristarkh Lentulov married Maria Petrovna Rukina who gave birth to a girl named Marianna. Lentulov’s daughter worked as an art historian, writer and educator.
Marianna had a son, the artist’s grandson, Alexander Yakovlevich. His son, Fedor Aleksandrovich Lentulov, followed his great-grandfather steps and chose a career of a painter.