Background
Grigoriev was born in Luhansk, Ukraine, on July 5, 1910, into a family of railway workers.
Moscow, Russian Federation
In 1926 Grigoriev moved to Moscow to continue his studies at the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops, Vkhutemas (later known as Vkhutein), leaving it in 1927.
Kiev, Ukraine
In 1928 Grigoriev enrolled in the Kiev Art Institute (the present-day National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture), where he studied until 1932.
Grigoriev was born in Luhansk, Ukraine, on July 5, 1910, into a family of railway workers.
When Sergiy Grigoriev was a 13 year-old boy, he became a student of Zaporozhe Arts and Crafts School, a vocational art school. After finishing the school in 1926, he moved to Moscow to continue his studies at the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops, Vkhutemas (later known as Vkhutein), leaving it in 1927. In 1928, Grigoriev enrolled in the Kiev Art Institute (the present-day National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture), where he studied until 1932.
Grigoriev embarked on his artistic career in the late 1920s-early 1930s. He began as a graphic artist, working hard as a book illustrator, designer of posters and murals, and also an interior decorator. In 1932, the artist moved to Kharkiv, where he joined the staff of the publishing house "Mystetstvo". Among his early artworks were mostly posters, such as "You give the country bread", "The foremost Donbass", "Komsomolia" and some others.
Sergiy Grigoriev worked as a teacher, exhibited his works at exhibitions, one of the shows was held in Poland in 1933, and assisted at the Art Institute in Kharkiv (now Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts). In 1934 he moved to Kiev and held the position of assistant professor at the Kiev Art Institute (the present-day National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture).
Between 1938 and 1939 he frequently participated in exhibitions, where he presented the artworks "Skier", "Mayvka", "Children on the Beach", "Bayanist", "Youth Euphras" and others. During the late 1930s, he gradually emerged as a lyrical painter. In his portraits, landscapes, and genres pictures, he created images filled with humaneness and harmony with the surrounding world.
Grigoriev was called up for military service in 1939; there he was engaged in decorating and in parallel worked on a painting "Children’s Music School." During the Second World War, he was a political worker. In spite of the fact that he served in the army until 1946, Grigoriev never came up with the idea of creating paintings on military topics.
From 1947 he headed the department of drawing at the Kiev Art Institute and created such his artworks as "Portrait of Marshal Konev I. C." and "At the meeting". In the late 1940s, he established himself in Soviet painting as a mature master of multi figural, complex compositions.
Since 1950 on, Sergiy Grigoriev had participated in the all-Union exhibition activity for 3 years, concurrently working at the Committee of Appointments of the Stalin Prizes in the field of fine arts, literature and architecture. The same year he executed a picture of "The discussion of the deuce".
Between 1951 and 1955 Grigoriev occupied the position of a rector of the Kiev Art Institute and directed the workshop of genre painting. During 1952-1957 he was acting as the head of painting from the Ukrainian SSR.
In 1954 Grigoriev painted "Returned". Throughout his prolific career as a painter, he held numerous important exhibits including "Twenty Years of the Workers" and "Peasants Red Army", Moscow, 1938; "Industry of Socialism", Moscow, 1939; "All-Union Art Exhibition", Moscow, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1955.
In 1960 the work "Parents meeting" was created; his daughter posed for the image of a young teacher. In 1973 his personal exhibition was opened in Kiev. In 1987 Sergiy Grigoriev participated in the Republican exhibition in Kiev once again.
Admission to the Komsomol
(Second version.)
Admission to the Komsomol
(First version.)
Golden Cape
Discussion of a Bad Grade
Portrait of the Artist Konstantin Zaruba
Boy's Head
Landscape
He is Back
Fishing Nets
View of a Church
Girl in a Fur Coat
Autumn
Self Portrait
Landscape
Evening Window
A Schoolgirl
Frozen Lake
Young Artist
Portrait of a Girl
Near the Ferry
At the Meeting
Girls in Front of the Lake
Goalkeeper
September Still Life
Portrait of Dina Frumina. Study
A Girl with An Apple
A Young Teacher
Pioneer Tie
Still Life
Koncha Zaspa Ozernaya
Artist's Granddaughter
Sister and Brother
My Car
Young Naturalists
Autumn Flowers
Autumn
Landscape
Merry Spectators
Morning at Khreshyatyk
Student
Pioneer
On the Dniper River
A Girl in a White Kerchief
February Sun
Quotations:
"I have always been guided by a sense of truth in art: nothing to invent, but to see, feel, learn people, the phenomenon of nature. Only bright and varied life provides rich material for creativity. Mainly, I think to see the total, whole. In this lies the whole essence. "What is a painting, I do not know - said Picasso - and if I knew that I would say to no one..." It was not only him who didn’t know, but no one knows. Painting - the magic wrought by a master in a state of high spiritual insight, the excitement of the heart, joy and suffering..."
"Great importance in my life plays a reverent love for the works of the past: the monuments of art of all mankind, different eras, civilizations and peoples. However, I have my favourites - an ancient Russian icon, Giotto, Michelangelo, Velasquez, Rembrandt and Rembrandt a thousand times... To this day, I admired Degas, Renoir, Serov, Levitan and Vrubel, whose work impressed me since my youth!. A special place in my mind takes Wanderers. Realizing that they were children of their epoch, I really like and appreciate these noble ascetics in the field of serving the people."
Grigoriev was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Arts in 1954, and in 1958 he became its full member.