Robert Falk was a Russian painter of the 20th century. His genre paintings, portraits, landscapes and still lifes were made in modern and avant-garde styles.
Background
Robert Falk was born on October 27, 1886, in Moscow, Russian Empire (currently Russian Federation). He was a first of two sons of the lawyer Raphael Alexandrovich Falk and Maria Borisovna Falk.
Robert’s younger brother Emmanuel Rafailovich Falk followed his father’s steps and became a lawyer.
Raphael Alexandrovich was a chess lover and tended to foster in his children the interest in similar reputable activities.
At his childhood, Robert revealed his abilities for music and was widely encouraged by the family. In 1903 he shifted to painting and made a decision to become an artist against the will of his parents.
Education
Robert Falk did his studies at the Peter and Paul Lutheran School.
Having an intention to become a painter, in 1904 Falk enrolled at the art studios of such painters as Konstantin Yuon, Ilya Mashkov and Ivan Dudin which he had attended for one year.
In 1905, the young artist presented his artworks to the admission board of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (currently the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture). He was accepted as one of the best and was taught by such masters as Konstantin Korovin and Valentin Serov. Falk graduated in 1909.
The start of Robert Falk’s artistic career can be counted from his debut group exhibition in 1906.
Since that time, Falk became an active participant of the artistic world and joined various art groups including the famous Jack of Diamonds. He demonstrated his artworks at many exhibitions within the association and other groups, like Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) or Zolotoe Runo.
After the Revolution of 1917, Falk became an art professor at the VKhUTEMAS or State Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops (currently Moscow Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov) where he had taught for ten years. His course was very popular among the students. Besides, since 1921, he occasionally gave art lessons at the Vitebsk Art School.
At the same time, the artist had worked at the Moscow Board of Arts at the People's Commissariat for Education (Narkompros) till 1921.
In 1928, Robert Falk had a business trip to Paris with the Moscow State Jewish Theatre where he worked as a set decorator. The artist had lived and worked in the capital of France ten years. The artworks he presented were popular among the local public.
After the return to the homeland, with the help of his former colleagues from the Jack of Diamonds, Robert Falk obtained a studio in Moscow.
In the Soviet Union, Falk’s neo-impressionist paintings had no such success as in Paris although in 1939 he had a personal exhibition at the Writer's Centre in Moscow. His canvases were accused in formalism and as not corresponding to the painting traditions of the Soviet art. Nevertheless, Falk continued to paint and to show his canvases in his own studio to his colleagues and friends.
The next retrospective of Robert Falk’s artworks was held in 1958 shortly before the artist’s death.
To marry Elizabeth Sergejevna Potehina, Robert Falk was baptized in 1909 as an Orthodox and received the name Roman which he used till the Revolution of 1917.
Membership
Jack of Diamonds
1910 - 1916
Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia
Interests
Artists
Paul Cézanne
Connections
Robert Falk was married four times.
In 1909, his first wife became Elizabeth Sergejevna Potehina, his classmate at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (currently the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture). The couple had lived together for eleven years and had one son, Valery, who died during the Second World War.
Then, the artist started a family with a Konstantin Stanislavski’s daughter, Kira Konstantinovna Alekseeva. They produced one child named Kirilla who became a Russian-French poetry translator. Robert and Kira broke out in 1922.
The same year, Robert Falk married a poetess and painter Raisa Vendeminovna Idelson with whom he had lived till 1931.
In 1939, Angelina Vasilyevna Shchekin-Krotova, an art historian, became his last wife.
Kirilla’s son, Konstantin Yuryevich Baranovsky, worked as a research officer of the Institute of United States of America and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences.