Background

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Deyneka was born on May 20, 1899, in Kursk, Russian Empire (currently Russian Federation). He was a son of Alexander Filaretovich and Marfa Nikitichna Deyneka. Alexander Filaretovich was a railroad worker.

At the childhood, little Aleksandr got interested in technics and art.

Education

Firstly, Aleksandr Deyneka followed his family tradition and entered the Kursk railroad college. However, he simultaneously attended the night classes at an art workshop.

The teachers observed Deyneka’s painting skills and pushed him to pursue the artistic training at the Kharkiv Art College (currently the Kharkiv State School of Art). He came to Kharkiv in 1915 and studied at the institution under the Russian Soviet realist painter Alexander Lubimov.

At the outbreak of the October Revolution in 1917 the College was closed and Aleksandr Deyneka returned to his native Kursk.

Four years later, he pursued his education at the polygraphic industry department of the Moscow Higher Art and Technical Studios (Russian abbreviation VKhUTEMAS). Among his teachers here were the famous Soviet painters Ignatius Nivinsky and Vladimir Favorsky. The latter had a great influence on Deyneka’s artistic mind as well as the interaction with Vladimir Mayakovsky. Deyneka graduated in 1924.

Career

Aleksandr Deyneka began his career in 1918. To support his family in Kursk, he worked as a photographer at the local Criminal Investigation Department and gave art lessons at a women’s gymnasium.

In 1919, Deyneka began his one-year military service in the Red Army where he applied his artistic abilities by heading his unit’s Art Department and producing posters for propaganda activities. In addition, the young artist took an active part in the theatrical performances at the front and in the decoration of the propaganda trains.

The first exhibition where Deyneka presented his artworks as a member of the Group of Three was the First Discussion Exhibition of Active Revolutionary Art Associations of 1924 in Moscow. The following year along with his peers Aleksandr Deyneka established an art association called Society of Easel Artists (Russian abbreviation ‘OST’) the main goal of which was to develop the new art style dubbed Social Realism supposed to combine the European art trends with Soviet reality. As a member of the society, he participated in four exhibitions in Moscow and in international ones in Dresden (1926), Leipzig (1927), Cologne (1928) and New York City (1929).

In the middle twenties, the artist began his active collaboration with multiple Soviet magazines like ‘Bezbozhnik u Stanka’ (Atheist at the Machine), ‘Projector’, ‘Krasnaya Niva’ (‘The Red Field’) and others by producing a great number of caricatures on anti-Soviet personages and paintings of the Soviet heroes – workers, builders, miners and sportsmen. To find the subjects for his canvases Deyneka travelled around the country a lot. His pieces of this period showed the ideal new country promoted by Communist ideology.

In 1928, he produced one of his most famous paintings called The Battle of Sevastopol.

The same year, he left the Society of Easel Artists and became a member of other art association called Oktyabr (October). Besides, Deyneka joined the professor’s staff of the Moscow Higher Art and Technical Studios where he spent two years and the Moscow Polygraphic Institute (currently Moscow State University of Printing Arts of Ivan Fedorov) where he had served at the department of poster art until 1934.

One more activity in which the artist tried his hand at the end of the decade became the book graphic art. Aleksandr Deyneka illustrated the magazine for children ‘Iskorka’ (Sparkle) and many books for children, including ‘Bustle’ by Nikolai Aseev and the writings by Agniya Barto.

At the beginning of the new decade, the artist shifted from the collective topics in his canvases to the particularities of the human being as he did in one of his most important paintings of this time called ‘Mother’. The palette of the artist changed as well – it became softer and more romantic depicting more and more strong female figures.

One more event which inspired Deyneka on the new series of landscapes was his trip to Sevastopol in 1934. A year later, in order to explore the artworks of his foreign colleagues, the artist was sent to Italy, France and the United States. While abroad, Aleksandr Deyneka participated at the World Exhibition in Paris (Exposition Universelle) of 1937 and at the New York World’s Fair two years later. The artist produced many sketches during his trips which later resulted in a series of landscapes and portraits.

Deyneka pursued his teaching activity at the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute where he had taught from 1934 till 1946.

Along with the strong women, the frequent characters of his paintings during this period, Deyneka expressed his passion for technics by producing a lot of canvases on aviation theme such as Future Pilots of 1937, his illustrations for the book by G. F. Baidukov called ‘Through the pole to America’ and for the book ‘Our Aviation’ by Ilya Mazuruk.

In 1937, Aleksandr Deyneka received the commission to decorate the Soviet Army Theatre (currently the Central Academic Theatre of the Russian Army) for which he produced a large mural panel in two years. This first mural project was followed by the series of 34 mosaics for the Mayakovskaya metro station. The decoration dubbed ‘24 hours of the Soviet Sky’ can be admired nowadays. Later, the artist took part at the decoration of the metro station Novokuznetskaya.

The World War II influenced the artworks of Aleksandr Deyneka. The artist depicted the front-line life in Moscow and travelled to the front in order to show the terrible war scenes. The canvases of this period include ‘The Shot-Down Ace’, ‘The Outskirts of Moscow’, ‘The Battle of Sevastopol’ among others and the paintings he made after the trip to Berlin in May of 1945.

After the war, the artist continued to paint as actively as he did at the beginning of his career. Although, the characters of his canvases had no former energy. In addition to painting, he produced a lot of sculptures from wood, majolica, bronze, porcelain and cement. In 1945, Deyneka became a director of the Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts and had held this position for three years, working at the institution in total for eight years. He had taught at the Moscow Architectural Institute from 1953 till 1957 as well.

Besides, Alexander Deyneka pursued his work as a decorator of such state buildings as the Moscow State University, the State Kremlin Palace and the Moscow Exhibition Center.

Although the anti-formalist policy during Joseph Stalin’s rule, the artist kept his popularity among Kremlin authorities even after Stalin’s death.

In 1962 Deyneka was named a Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Arts (currently the Russian Academy of Arts) and had held this post till 1966. Three years later, several days before Alexander Deyneka’s death, the Academy organized a huge retrospective of his artworks.

Achievements

• Aleksandr Deyneka was a distinguished artist whose dynamic canvases became exemplar artworks of the socialist realism reflecting the Soviet history of the 1920s-1950s.
  
  During his fruitful career, the artist received many awards and honorary titles, including People's Artist of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labour, the Lenin Prize, the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, the Medal for Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 and the Medal in Memory of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow. Besides, he was marked on the international art scene by the Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1937 (for the panel ‘Noble people of the Soviet Union’) and by the Grand Prix of the New York World’s Fair of 1939 (for the architectural design of the Mayakovskaya metro station).
  
  In addition to his remarkable painting abilities, Deyneka was known as a talented educator who transmitted his knowledge to such notable artists as the painters Andrey Vasnetsov, German Cheryomushkin, Julia Daneshvar, Isabella Aghayan, the sculptor Nikolay Yasinenko and many others.
  
  Deyneka’s painting called ‘Behind the Curtain’ was purchased at the MacDougall’s art auction for about $3,5 million.
  
  Nowadays, the artist’s heritage can be found in the collections of such art museums and galleries, like the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the Kursk Regional Art Gallery named after A. A. Deineka and many others.

Works

More photos

• decoration

  • 24 hours of the Soviet Sky (fragment)

• painting

  • Portrait of a Boy

  • With Change

  • Worker and Peasant

  • Future Pilots

  • Portrait of a Student

  • Winter in Kursk

  • We Have to Become Specialists

  • Gagarin's Day in Paris

  • Yard

  • Youth

  • Portrait of an Old Man

  • Self-portrait

  • Work, Build and don't Weep

  • Who will Defeat Whom

  • Youth Negro

  • Child's Drawing

  • Donbass

  • Mother

  • Cross

  • Skiers

  • The Battle of Sevastopol

  • Outskirts of Moscow

  • The Defence of Petrograd

  • Sea

  • Berlin

  • View from the Artist’s Studio

  • Running

  • Goalkeeper

  • A Pioneer. Kursk

Membership

• Society of Easel Artists , Soviet Union

  1925 - 1928

• Oktyabr art association , Soviet Union

  1928 - 1931

• Russian Association of Proletarian Artists , Soviet Union

  1931 - 1932

• currently the Russian Academy of Arts, Russian Federation

  USSR Academy of Arts , Soviet Union

  1947

• Artists' Union of the USSR , Soviet Union

Personality

Aleksandr Deyneka kept silence about his private life. His first wife appeared on many of his canvases, but the artist never mentioned her whole name in the title of a painting using only the initials S. I. L. for Seraphima Ivanovna Lycheva.

Physical Characteristics: Aleksandr Deyneka was a tall and robust man with large hands similar to a miner.

Connections

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Deyneka was married twice. His first wife became in 1934 Seraphima Ivanovna Lycheva. They had lived together for twenty-five years.

In 1959, the artist married Elena Pavlovna Volkova who was younger by twenty-two years.

Both families didn’t produce children.

Father:

Alexander Filaretovich Deyneka

Mother:

Marfa Nikitichna Deyneka

1st spouse:

Seraphima Ivanovna Lycheva

2nd spouse:

Elena Pavlovna Volkova

mentor:

Alexander Lubimov

mentor:

Ignatius Nivinsky

mentor:

Vladimir Favorsky

Acquaintance:

Vladimir Mayakovsky

References

• Aleksandr Deyneka
  2010
• Aleksandr Deyneka. Painting. Grafik art. Sculpture. Album
  2010