Vitaly Konstantinovich Tsvirko was a famous Belarusian artist, painter, and educator. He held the title of People's Artist of the BSSR and was a laureate of the State Prize of the BSSR.
Background
Vitaly Konstantinovich Tsvirko was born on February 14, 1913, in the village of Radeevo, Mogilev Governorate, the Russian Empire (now Buda-Koshelevsky district, Gomel region, Belarus), to the family of rural teachers. The father of the future artist largely contributed to the formation of artistic taste in his son: there were many reproductions of works by such Russian artists as Vasily Perov, Ilya Repin, and Ivan Kramskoy on the walls of the house of the Tsvirko family.
Education
When the Tsvirko's family moved to Minsk, Vitaly Tsvirko’s drawings were noticed by schoolteachers, future famous Belarusian painters Mikhail Stanyuta and Anatoly Tychina, who began giving him private lessons. The Belarusian writer, poet and playwright Kondrat Krapiva had a particular influence on the development of the artist’s creative personality.
In 1929, the future artist went to study at the Vitebsk Art College, which he graduated in 1932. In 1935, he entered the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow (now Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture) for a course on Ryazhsky G. G. and Pocarzhevsky P. D. There he also studied with such famous masters of the Russian landscape as Gerasimov S. V. and Grabar I. E. During the Great Patriotic War, the institute was evacuated to Samarkand, where in 1942 the artist received a diploma of higher education.
Career
Vitaly Tsvirko started his career as an artist in 1935, when he participated in an art exhibition in Moscow, which led to admission to the Surikov Art Institute the same year.
In 1944, after the liberation of Minsk from the fascist invaders, the artist returned to Belarus, where he was actively engaged in painting on military-historical and post-war subjects. The central work of the artist of that period can be considered the painting “The Unconquered” (1947), where a group of fascist soldiers was opposed to the partisan who was sentenced to the execution. From historical plots, one can note his work “Fishermen Uprising at Lake Naroch” (1957).
In subsequent years, Vitaly Tsvirko was more interested in lyrical landscape painting and landscape monumental, for example, in the triptych “On Belarusian Land” (1961), which he depicts workers returning from fields.
During his career, Vitaly Tsvirko also created a series of memorial cityscapes related to the events of the Great Patriotic War in Belarus and portraits of participants in the partisan movement for the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk.
From 1947, the artist began teaching at the Minsk Art School (now Minsk State Art College named after A. Glebov), and since 1952 - at the Belarusian State Theater and Art Institute (now Belarusian State Academy of Arts), where he first headed the department of painting, then received the title of professor, and from 1958 to 1960, held the position of rector there.
During his later years, the artist held his exhibitions in Belarus and other countries, working and living in Minsk. Vitaly Tsvirko died on June 11, 1993, in Minsk, and was buried in the Eastern Cemetery.
Views
Performed in a rich pictorial manner, Tsvirko's landscapes create a lyrically-profound image of the Belarusian nature.
Membership
In 1946, Vitaly Tsvirko became a member of the Union of Artists of the BSSR. From 1961 to 1967, he served as the secretary of the board of the USSR Union of Artists, and in 1962-1963, he was the chairman of the board of the Union of Artists of the BSSR.