Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin: From "The Red Horse" to "Housewarming"
В Khvalynsk, was born into a family of a shoemaker and a servant Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin - artist.
Russia is like a man whose head itches in Moscow, but whose heels are tickled on the Volga
From childhood, he observed icon painters at work. At 14, he failed the exams to enter the Samara Railway School and spent several years studying painting with a local artist. Fedor Burov.
At 17, he returned home: his mother worked as a maid for a local patron of the arts and showed her son's drawings to a visiting architect from St. Petersburg. He invited him to continue his education: with the Khvalynsk merchant's money, he studied at Petersburg, then - in Moscow у Serov. He was grateful to her until the end of his life, although at times he felt humiliated.
I have so mutilated myself with these handouts
He worked part-time at a pottery factory and gave private lessons. Having saved up, he studied in Europe for several years. There, he made some "favorites"— Leonardo da Vinci, Bellini, Raphael. To “forget the grey colours”, I travelled around North Africa.
In both Africa and Paris, I was still an undefined artist. The real work begins in Russia.
At 31, he returned to Russia. His very first painting, "Dream," caused a stir. He attempted to convey "the stupor that had gripped Russian society" and "the readiness to awaken." Repin called the author "an ignoramus." Bakst и Benoit found the canvas to be austere and noble.
He traveled extensively throughout the country, studying ancient Russian icons and frescoes. He became world-famous at 34, after painting "Bathing of the Red Horse" (1912). When World War I and the Revolution began, this work was seen as "the original face of Russia."
Under the Bolsheviks, he held an important post in the Council for Arts Affairs. Gorky. He taught in free educational workshops in Petrograd (the former Academy of Arts) and at courses at the People's Commissariat of Education.
Instead of painting, there's that damned professorship. There's no sales or demand, but there's plenty of chatter. Our Motherland is finding its way in life with great difficulty and pain.
(from a letter from his mother, 1923)
It's time to stop speculating on the past and create the present.
His works increasingly began to reflect the aspirations of the proletariat: “The Death of a Commissar,” “The Petrograd Madonna,” “Herring.”
He designed illustrations for "Goat Dereza", "Snegurochka" and "Riddles" Marshak.
In 1932 he was elected as a deputy to the Leningrad City Council.
One of the artist's last paintings, "Housewarming" (1937), depicts how proletarians moved into the apartments of victims of the repression. It remained in the Tretyakov Gallery's storerooms until 1965.
He died of tuberculosis in 1939, at the age of 60.
