When still a schoolboy, Mikhail Savitsky became fascinated with art, helping to decorate Kokhanov High School, which he finished in 1940.
College/University
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
22 Petrusya Brovki Street, Minsk, Belarus
Only demobilized from the military service in 1946, Savitsky entered Minsk Art College (now Minsk State Art College named after A.K. Glebov) and graduated from it with honours in 1951.
Mikhail Savitsky studied at the Moscow Art Institute of Surikov (now Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture), graduating from it in 1957.
Career
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1981
Ulitsa Kozlova 3, Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky as a delegate from Minsk Oblast, in the Palace of Arts with the delegates of the 29th Congress of the Communist Party of Belarus
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1981
Ulitsa Kozlova 3, Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky as a delegate from Minsk Oblast, in the Palace of Arts with the delegates of the 29th Congress of the Communist Party of Belarus
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1982
Minsk, Belarus
In the workshop of Mikhail Savitsky, 20 July 1982
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1984
Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky and his new painting “The anniversary of a burned village”. 24 August 1984
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1985
Minsk, Belarus
People’s Artist of Belarus and the USSR Mikhail Savitsky, 26 February 1985
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1985
Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky and his students – V.Tsinonovets, I.Orlov, A.Frolenkov and I.Barkhatkov. 26 February 1985
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1986
Minsk, Belarus
People’s Artist of Belarus and the USSR Mikhail Savitsky and People’s Writer of Belarus Vasil Bykov. 10 April 1986
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1986
Minsk, Belarus
People’s Artist of Belarus and the USSR Mikhail Savitsky and People’s Writer of Belarus Vasil Bykov. 10 April 1986
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1987
Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky finished creating a portrait of Alexander Pushkin and Natalia Nikolaevna. 10 February 1987
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1989
Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky and his son Andrey, a graphic artist of the academic workshop of the Academy of Arts of the USSR
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1989
Minsk, Belarus
Deputies of the BSSR Supreme Soviet – cosmonaut Vladimir Kovalenok, composer Igor Luchenok and artist Mikhail Savitsky, 19 October 1989
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1989
Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky and his son Andrey, a graphic artist of the academic workshop of the Academy of Arts of the USSR
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
1997
Minsk, Belarus
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko visited the studio of People's Artist of Belarus Mikhail Savitsky to wish him happy 75th birthday, 18 February 1997
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
2002
vulica Lienina 20, Minsk, Belarus
Representatives of the Belarusian President Administration, government and parliament, Culture Ministry gathered in the National Art Museum of Belarus on 18 February 2002 to wish happy birthday to the artist
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
2003
Minsk, Belarus
Alexander Lukashenko presented a special prize of Belarusian President for people of culture and art to Mikhail Savitsky, People’s Artist, Academician of the National Academy of Science of Belarus, head of the creative academic workshop of painting, graphics and sculpture, 7 January 2003
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
2004
vulica Lienina 20, Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky during the Union State Literature and Art Awards ceremony at the National Art Museum of Belarus, 22 July 2004
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
Minsk, Belarus
Mikhail Savitsky in his studio in Minsk
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
vulica Lienina 20, Minsk, Belarus
At the exhibition of paintings by Mikhail Savitsky Black Story at the National Art Museum of Belarus
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
vulica Lienina 20, Minsk, Belarus
At the exhibition of paintings by Mikhail Savitsky Black Story at the National Art Museum of Belarus
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
vulica Lienina 20, Minsk, Belarus
At the exhibition of paintings by Mikhail Savitsky Black Story at the National Art Museum of Belarus
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
Minsk, Belarus
People’s Artist of Belarus and the USSR Mikhail Savitsky
Gallery of Mikhail Savitsky
Minsk, Belarus
People’s Artist of Belarus and the USSR Mikhail Savitsky
Achievements
2003
Minsk, Belarus
Alexander Lukashenko presented a special prize of Belarusian President for people of culture and art to Mikhail Savitsky, People’s Artist, Academician of the National Academy of Science of Belarus, head of the creative academic workshop of painting, graphics and sculpture, 7 January 2003
Membership
Awards
Order of Francysk Skaryna
Mikhail Savitsky was the recipient of the Order of Francysk Skaryna in 1997.
Order of Lenin
Mikhail Savitsky was the recipient of the Order of Lenin in 1982.
Red Banner of Labour
Mikhail Savitsky was the recipient of the Red Banner of Labour in 1972.
Order of St.Andrew the Apostole the First-Called
Mikhail Savitsky was the recipient of the Order of St.Andrew the Apostle the First-Called in 1999.
Badge of Honour
Mikhail Savitsky was the recipient of the Badge of Honour in 1967.
Hero of Belarus Medal
Mikhail Savitsky was the recipient of the Hero of Belarus Medal in 2006.
People's Artist of the USSR Medal
Mikhail Savitsky was the recipient of the title, People's Artist of the USSR, in 1978.
USSR State Prize
Mikhail Savitsky was the recipient of the USSR State Prize in 1973.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko visited the studio of People's Artist of Belarus Mikhail Savitsky to wish him happy 75th birthday, 18 February 1997
Representatives of the Belarusian President Administration, government and parliament, Culture Ministry gathered in the National Art Museum of Belarus on 18 February 2002 to wish happy birthday to the artist
Alexander Lukashenko presented a special prize of Belarusian President for people of culture and art to Mikhail Savitsky, People’s Artist, Academician of the National Academy of Science of Belarus, head of the creative academic workshop of painting, graphics and sculpture, 7 January 2003
Only demobilized from the military service in 1946, Savitsky entered Minsk Art College (now Minsk State Art College named after A.K. Glebov) and graduated from it with honours in 1951.
Mikhail Savitsky studied at the Moscow Art Institute of Surikov (now Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture), graduating from it in 1957.
Mikhail Savitsky was a Belarusian painter, People’s Artist of the Republic of Belarus, educator, winner of many prestigious awards, and the first holder of the Order of Francysk Skaryna. Over the years of creative work, he produced a number of high-principled, patriotic paintings famous both in Belarus and worldwide. He was known in particular for his work "Partisan Madonna" painted in 1978.
Background
Mikhail Andreevich Savitsky was born on February 18, 1922, in the village of Zvenyachi, Talochyn district, Vitebsk Region, at that time Belarusian SSR (today’s Belarus). His father Andrey Petrovich Savitsky was a railway worker, mother Anna Konstantinovna was a collective farmer. There were also three elder brothers - Aleksey, Ivan, Vladimir, and a younger sister Nadezhda in the family. Mikhail inherited an ability to work selflessly, decently and imaginatively from his father.
Education
When still a schoolboy, Mikhail Savitsky became fascinated with art, helping to decorate Kokhanov High School, which he finished in 1940. His dream to study painting in Vitebsk did not come true, as he had to help his parents in the village.
Only demobilized from the military service in 1946, Savitsky entered Minsk Art College (now Minsk State Art College named after A.K. Glebov) and graduated from it with honours in 1951. He then also studied at the Moscow Art Institute of Surikov (now Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture), graduating from it in 1957. There he devoted all his time to studies (he received the highest government grants) under the supervision of Professor D. Mochalsky. His diploma work "Song" was done yet along a trend of avoiding any conflict in art, typical for the 1950s.
On September 12, 1940, eighteen-year-old Komsomol member Mikhail Savitsky was conscripted into the Red Army. By that time his elder brothers had already served in the armed forces of the country (Aleksey and Vladimir died a heroic death at the front of the Great Patriotic War, Ivan returned from the war disabled and died in 1961). At first, Mikhail got to the junior commanders' school of the air defence artillery management in Rostov-on-Don and then he was moved to Novorossiysk to the 545th KurskAir Defence Artillery Regiment. The last pre-war position of Savitsky was an assistant of the sergeant major in the aviation school in Grozny. The Great Patriotic War found him in Makhachkala, where the 345th Infantry Division was formed for the landing operation at Sevastopol. It was in Sevastopol that he took his first fight as the deputy commander of the 793rd Separate Communications Battalion.
From the end of October 1941 to the end of June 1942 the Red Army man Savitsky fought to death with his comrades to protect the Black Sea port blockaded by the Nazis from land and sea. Many years later the artist created a dramatic painting The Oath of Sevastopol Defenders (1985). He dedicated it to his fellow soldiers who had fallen and and those, who had stayed alive.
The last battle of the paratroopers took place in early July 1942, at the rocky coast of Cape Chersonesos - the westernmost point of the Crimean peninsula. For four days, practically without food or fresh water, pressed to the sea Red Army men among whom was Mikhail blunted the attack of the enemy until they run out of bullets. Wounded Savitsky was taken the prisoner on July 4. Then the hell started: transit camps in Bakhchysarai and Nikolaev, Simferopol prison, the 326th Stalag, a labour POW camp in Diisseldorf, the concentration camps of Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora (a division of Buchenwald, near Nordhausen), quarries in Thuringia, punishment isolation cells, and finally the last circle of Dante's Inferno - the Dachau concentration camp near Munich.
The allied troops liberated the camp on April 29, 1945. Prisoner 32815, Mikhail Savitsky, was found unconscious, almost breathless... He survived against all odds. After the treatment and appropriate examinations in a special filtration camp of the NKVD (the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), he served in the 6th Guards Air Defence Artillery Division as a graphic designer. He was demobilized in early December 1946 and studied in Minsk and then in Moscow. His graduation painting Song created a furore among the members of the State Commission. Having graduated with the diploma with honours and the qualification «Painter», Mikhail Andreevich returned to his homeland in late November 1957.
A new phase of his creative and personal life started in Minsk. After the graduation, Mikhail Andreevich worked, passionately and selflessly, without weekends and holidays, as if making up for the years of youth so cruelly consumed by the war. He mostly created more or less successful genre paintings, and also tried to paint portraits. But it was only a prelude to what was to emerge in his creative work of the mid-1960s and early 1970s.
The 1963 became the crucial year. There appeared the painting Partisans – one of his first works, making part of an epic series about the struggle of the Belarusian people against fascism. As it turned out, that painting had a crucial meaning for the further creative work of the master, because the philosophical credo of the artist was clearly defined in it and the key elements of image-bearing and plastic structure that would be developed and made more complex were identified.
And then the famous The Partisan Madonna (1967) appeared. It is still «the calling card» of the master, which found its permanent place in the State Tretyakov Gallery. As old as art itself, the story acquired some high symbolic interpretation. The eternal anxiety of a mother for her child's future is expressed in a dramatic comparison of a common Belarusian woman with the realities of a terrible war. Her inner world is complex and ambiguous as the images of Madonna created by great predecessors, from Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael to K. Petrov-Vodkin, the Russian artist, who is very close in the spiritual and image-bearing and plastic structure to our master. But Savitsky created his own Madonna. Savitsky expressed his principal attitude to the great traditions of world realistic painting. And for the first time in Soviet art the symbol of the long-suffering and courageous Belarus, the purity of spirit, good morals, enduring maternal love and dedication were so brilliantly embodied in the painting.
11 years later, in 1978, the artist created another painting called The Partisan Madonna (of Minsk) specifically for the State Art Museum of the BSSR (now the National Art Museum of Belarus). Madonna is one of the favourite images of the artist. It can be seen in the paintings Madonna of Birkenau (1978), Madonna of Chernobyl (1989), Madonna with Cornflowers (1990), The Pure in Heart (Christmas) (1996). It's necessary to mention his painting Breads (1968).
The epic painting Field (1972) is also about the war, like most works of Savitsky, but of a different kind. This work is of a monumental scale, compositionally sharp and extremely dynamic, expressive and powerful in colour and rhythm, where the drama transforms into a high tragedy of the Bach sound. Deep symbolism is hidden in the contrast of two colours – light golden and black: black silhouettes of the Nazis, who fill all the depth of the field right to the horizon, and our soldiers with ammunition belts illuminated by the sun.
Strictly speaking, the 1960-90s are the «golden» period of creativity for Savitsky: it was during this time that he created his best paintings, including monumental works (the monumental painting The Great Patriotic War. 1944 (1971) for the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War, in co-authorship with A.Kishchenko - the monumental painting The Triumph of Generations for Belarus sanatorium in Miskhor (the Crimea), and tapestries The USSR - Milestones and Leninism (1975- 1978) for the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus in Minsk).
Among his easel paintings dedicated to war and peace, the dramatic history of the Fatherland scorched by the flames of the revolution and the civil war are paintings Partisans of Orsha and Partisans. Blockade ( 1966- 1967), Vitebsk Gate (1967), The Legend of Minai Shmyreu and Execution (1968), The Oath (1969), Children of War and Refugees (1972), Lament for the Fallen Heroes (1974), «choral» paintings with the image of Lenin - The Unanimity (1969- 1970), August 30, 1918 (1972), First Decrees (1977), works about the pressing issues of modern days - Harvest (1966), In the Field (1972), Sowing (1985), The 41't Victory Day (1986), XX Century - the Murder of Truth (2000), Peasant Pieta, Father's Overcoat and The Missing (all - 1991), Sunday (1993), Peasant Woman and Philosopher (1994- 1996); great series of paintings Black Story (1987-1989, 1993) The Beatitudes, Commandments, The Peasant Symphony (1991 - 1998) - about eternal spiritual values of human existence. And a lot of portraits of philosophers, writers, scientists, actors, artists, thinkers, and all the presidents of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences since its formation. The images of Y. Kupala, Y. Kolas, M. Bagdanovich, A. Mickiewicz, F. Dostoevsky, V. Bykau, F. Skaryna, L. Tolstoy, V. Solovyev, N. Fedorov, A. Pushkin with N. Goncharova, V. Vysotsky, M. Ulyanov, Z. Azgur, N. Yakovenko are in the creative legacy of the artist, as well as the paintings dedicated to the family: the portraits of his wife in different years, the portraits of his father and mother (both - 1980), his son (1996), the paintings Ryta and Andrei (1965, 1969), Family (1980), SelfPortrait (1995), The Artist (1989).
It was very important to Savitsky that his hard-won imaginative worlds found their way to the hearts of the audience, made them truly empathize. According to him, sometimes you have «to burn the soul» in order to create a painting. And he burnt it without remorse, especially when he worked on the series of large canvases Figures on the Heart (1974- 1987) telling about the author's experience as a prisoner of war. The phrase «Death to be defined by death» is the best to illustrate this artistic and historical «document» of the epoch. Real episodes of the hell of the camp life, fine symbolism and many-layered allegory are combined in his figurative and plastic structure. 16 canvases of this tragic «play» with correspondent scenes and acts robbed Savitsky a lot of strength and health but also earned him great inner satisfaction and the feeling of a fulfilled sense of duty to the memory of those who had been doomed to get to the grindstones of the greatest catastrophes of XX century. The work on the series of paintings Black Story brought him the same satisfaction. These harrowing pictorial «visible prayers» were born immediately after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. They were born not only out of great grief for the actions of foolish people, but they were also created for the victory over the human humiliation and lies and for the triumph of reason, responsibility and compassion.
More than ten years the artist devoted to the creating of a unique Biblical series on Christ's earthly life and his epoch, in which he embodied his highly personal vision of history and modern problems associated with the eternal human values of spiritual existence. However, despite the huge creative working capacity, which took a lot of strength and health from him almost every day, M. Savitsky by no means was a recluse in his studio: he was also engaged in teaching, public and political activities. He was elected deputy of the BSSR Supreme Soviet of the 10th convocation in 1980. From 1981 until his death, he was the head of the art workshop of the USSR Academy of Fine Arts in Minsk. Later it became known as the artistic academic workshops of painting, sculpture and graphics of the Ministry of Culture of Belarus. Such talented artists as U. Kozhuh, V. Alsheusky, A. Ksendzau, I. Barkhatkau, V. Gancharuk, A. Susha, F. Yanushkevich, V. Dubrava, R. Zaslonau, A. Zadoryn, F. Dragun, V. Dzedzyulya are among his pupils. Since 1995, he had been the chairman of the supervisory board of the Belarusian Republican Foundation «Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation» as a former prisoner of the concentration camps of Buchenwald, Dora, Dachau.
In 2010, during the work on the painting about the children-prisoners of the Nazi special death camp Skabrouka which the Nazis built near Maryina Gorka in 1944, Mikhail Savitsky suffered a massive stroke which didn't allow him to finish his painting and led to death. Savitsky was 89 years old.
Mikhail Savitsky was a muralist as well as a portraitist. The fundamental feature of Savitsky's work, the basis of his world view, is that art participates in being and is inseparable from it. The duty of the artist is not only to find a language - how to talk about the world, but also to reveal the meaning - what to say about the world. The whole “severe style” of the 60-80s can hardly be comprehended without an analysis of Savitsky's work.
The traditions of Russian painting, historical paintings have found in his work a kind of continuation, which has no analogues in modern art. The combination of civic, socially significant themes and a bold search based on impeccable knowledge of the newest art led to unexpected results: works met with applause from the artists were often excluded from the exhibition. An example of this is “Crying about Fallen Heroes” (now in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery).
Many of the themes in Savitsky's works are focused around war and Chernobyl, for they constantly plagued his mind. However, Mikhail Savitsky was also known for his scandalous anti-Semitic statements. According to his colleagues, he did not like Chagall and his work and believed that the Jews excessively overstate the number of those killed during World War II. Savitsky believed that there was no Holocaust at all, like the gas chambers (according to his personal memories in concentration camps).
Quotations:
“Only art is given to take an object and give it a second life. Only art is given to manage time! To create not material values, but to make it. And time itself leaves art to descendants. This is the greatest power of art, its indispensability in the transfer of experience, in the development of culture. "
"An artist must identify himself with a particular cultural system. And he must work in it in spite of everything."
Membership
Over the years, Mikhail Savitsky was a member of the Presidium of the Artists' Union of the BSSR and a member of the Commission on the State Prizes of the BSSR, the chairman of the National Arts Council of the Art Foundation of the BSSR, a member of the Editorial Board of the BSE (Belarusian Soviet Encyclopedia), and a member of the jury for the award of the M.B. Grekov medals of the USSR Ministry of Culture.
Later, he was also a member of the Presidium of the Artist's Union of Belarus, member of the USSR Academy of Arts, member of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and a member of the International Slavic Academy.
Personality
Mikhail Andreevich was very different: kind and tough, silent and talkative, dissatisfied and cheerful, always committed and creative. Throughout his life, he defended his positions on the understanding of contemporary reality and art and was a one-piece master: fierce temperament, powerful, even demonic grip, high professionalism, violent dedication, and amazing self-sufficiency.
Physical Characteristics:
Mikhail Savitsky fell very ill in his later life, suffering a massive stroke. He died on November 28, 2010. He was 89 years old.
Connections
At the final year of Minsk Art College (now Minsk State Art College named after A.K. Glebov), Mikhail Savitsky had married his fellow student Margarita Denisova, and their only son Andrey, the future cultural studies scholar, art historian and artist, was born in 1964.