PREYSS Jurgis Ionasovich (Richard Gans) (1904 - 1984), European and Soviet painter, among the German anti-fascists, a native of Konigsberg was born in 1920 and 1930. - Foreign agent of foreign intelligence NKVD of the USSR, a member of the Union of Artists.
Born September 1, 1904 in the capital of the German province of "East Prussia" city of Königsberg. The German. Was a member of the Communist Party of Germany from the period of its leadership, Ernest Thalmann.
Education: 1920 - Königsberg art academy.
On the foreign residency KGB department, apparently, started to cooperate more in the 1920s and, most likely - on the line of the Comintern.
In 1933, with the advent of the Nazis was forced to leave Germany. Subsequent years spent wandering through Europe (and at the same time while carrying out tasks of intelligence center in Moscow): Vienna, Basel, Moscow, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki, Moscow again ... In this period, as stated in his diary, typed impressions of personal acquaintance with the originals of paintings by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse Grunewald, admired the beauty of Izenheymskogo altar and, of course, very much works as a painter. In particular, in 1937 in Paris, located on the street Bonaparte Gallery Van Leer, took his solo exhibition, which were mostly represented by paintings in the style then fashionable "new traditionalism." French criticism graciously bestowed the title then the author-artist "intimista."
In 1939 he moved permanently to the USSR. At the same time took Soviet citizenship, replacing with the name "Hans Richard" to "Jurgis Ionasovich."
Obviously, in recognition of his weighty services to the Soviet foreign intelligence service apartment and studio for painting the official authorities of the German emigre artists were not granted anywhere, but in Moscow. However, with the onset of the Great Patriotic War, he as a person of German nationality was among those forcibly deported from the capital of Siberia, and in the first two months held here in an internment camp. Once free, but without having the right to freedom of movement, forced settled in the village Oyash Moszkowski modern district of Novosibirsk region.
In 1943-1956 years. with permission of the authorities he lived and worked in Tomsk. In this period of his life he was admitted to the Union of Artists.
Since 1956 (but with a short break in 1960 when traveling to a permanent place of residence in the GDR) - the capital of Kuzbass Kemerovo.
In the first half of 1960 while he lived and worked in Berlin, at the same time made a sightseeing tour of the Soviet Baltic states with a visit to the former Koenigsberg, who by that time already Kaliningrad. According to the researchers biography of the artist, "the meeting with the past came into work the nervous urgency and deep confessional. At the last turn of life, the artist once again found his creative "I". But it remained his personal victory, not the award of public attention "
He died in 1984.
He was buried in the city of Kemerovo.
Currently, the bulk of the artist's creative heritage is stored in the Kemerovo - part of a total of more than a hundred paintings in the walls of the Kemerovo Oblast Fine Arts Museum, which is exhibited in the permanent exhibition as monokollektsiya, and some - in the private collection of his adopted daughter - LA . Biryukova. However, about three dozen canvases and there is in the collections of the Kaliningrad State Art Gallery.
In memory of the artist management Kemerovo Regional Museum of Fine Arts in 1999, was released on the album, calendar, "Jurgis Preyss."
Yuri RZHEVTSEV.