Boris Grigoriev (1886-1939)

[Евгений]

Today in 1886 - was born Boris Grigoriev /Boris Grigoriev /, one of the most talented Russian artists-emigrants.

Most of his life BD Grigoriev was known, dozens of his works are eagerly bought by collectors and museums in Russia, France, America, Chile, the Czech Republic and other countries. He had a reputation abroad "Artist Line," the great Russian artist, thanks to its tremendous hard work and efficiency. In 1926 he emigrated Grigoriev wrote about himself: "Now I'm the first artist in the world. <...> I do not apologize for these phrases. You have to know yourself, who you are, otherwise you will not know what to do. And Life My saint of labor above and beyond the senses, and my 40 years prove it. I'm not afraid of any competition, any order, any theme, any size and any speed (from a letter to the poet Vasily Kamensky).

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He studied at SHPU in Moscow (1900-07) and the Higher School of Arts at Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg (1907-13). His teachers were AE Arkhipov, DA Sherbinovsky, AA Kiselev and DN Kardovsky. It Sherbinovsky and Kardovsky struck the imagination of the young man's virtuosity possession line and, in fact, brought up in it relating to the drawing and lines as the basis for any work, as self-genre. In all other respects the desire of young Grigorieva disagreed with the academic school. Already in 1909 he was one headed by NI Kulbin Studio Impressionists - the association of young artists, creatively close to the Futurists.

Known in Russia came to Grigoryev after participation (since 1913) in the exhibitions of "The World of Art", which exhibited his drawings, made during short visits to Paris in 1911 and 1913. Creative and festive spirit of the city inspired him to create several thousands of drawings on a daily frantic work, when time is observed only washable crayons, and each step brings a new story. Concierge, clown, waiter, the townsfolk - a string typecasting undress Paris creates in these pages a complete a-kind image of the city, seen at a certain angle. "Intimite" ( "intimacy", fr.) - The so-called artist of a large series of drawings of Paris. Created as if in one breath, they taught the hand of the artist unquestioningly obey his sensations received from nature. Skill with which these drawings were made, did not leave anybody indifferent. Art critics in those years, responded to articles on the emergence of new talent. Thus, NN Punin named schedule Grigorieva "paradoxes in space and on the planes, tender, ironic and brilliant, but then he noted weaknesses in the personality of the artist:" ... to the idea, thought up until this feeling has never rises.

In 1917-18. Grigoriev, creating a cycle of "race", where the very subject of the Russian countryside in the post-revolutionary Russia has found in Grigoriev artist thinking, but thinking "deep and devastating" (A. Blok). All drawings and oil paintings in this series are made in Petrograd and Olonets province. As in the Paris series, images of people - farmers, children and elderly - are masterly lines, which give the compositions of the beauty and fascination, but they are being very truthful in grotesque ruthlessness, report forms almost cynical deconstructive. The artist liked a variety of forms and phenomena of life that laboratory preparations beautiful graphics line, forcing the saturated nature of its power "shedevriki" (an expression Grigoriev) artist. Peasants in the paintings "The Village", "Earth People", "Olonetsky grandfather," "The old woman with a cow," "Girl with a milk can, staring at the viewer from the crushing space tracks. In their eyes, dumb question, criticism and even threats. This gallery types of the Russian countryside, as understood by most of the capital's artistic intelligentsia, which belonged to the artist and for which a new cycle was a revelation. theater - and a monumental and grotesque, and real, and conditional.

In 1919, Grigoriev left Russia. His path lay through Finland to Germany, France, America. In 1927 he was invited to Chile for the post of professor of the Academy of Fine Arts, though, because of the coup government's invitation was withdrawn, but in 1936 was followed again. In 1927 he built a house painter in France, near Nice, where in 1930, after returning from a long trip to Latin America, worked on a large painting "Faces of the World", devoted to the League of Nations later this picture was acquired capital of Czechoslovakia.

Logical continuation of the cycle "race" became a portrait gallery of the Russian intelligentsia. The artist wrote to them at home and in exile. He willingly posed for many prominent figures of Russian culture, scientists and policy: Meyerhold (1916), MVDobuzhinsky (1917), F. Chaliapin (1918, 1921-22), Shestov (1921) , EK Breshko-Breshkovskaya (1921), Gorky (1926), SA Yesenin (1921), Alexander Kerensky (1924), Rachmaninov (1930), Actors Theater, (1923 ), etc. In this gallery the best known two portraits - Meyerhold and M. Gorky.

Created Grigoriev twenty years of emigration researchers have not yet been studied, but it is many times greater than the number of works, executed them at home. Shortly before his death, the artist graduated from the last self-portrait, as if putting a full stop in a remarkable series of portraits of Russia's intelligentsia, whose fate after October 1917 have developed so differently.