Lev Alexandrovich Russov (; 31 January 1926 – 20 February 1987) was a Soviet Russian painter, graphic artist, and sculptor, living and working in Leningrad, a member of the Leningrad Union of ArtistsDirectory of Members of the Union of Artists of USSR. Vol. 2. Moscow, Soviet artist, 1979. P.290. and representative of the Leningrad school of painting,The Leningrad School of Painting. Essays on the History. St Petersburg, ARKA Gallery Publishing, 2019. P.354. most known for his portrait painting.
Biography
Lev Alexandrovich Russov was born on 31 January 1926 in Leningrad, into a family of employees. His father Alexander Semionovich Russov came from peasants of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, his mother Iraida Semionovna Nemtsova was from Kostroma. In 1939, passion for drawing leads Russov to the art studio of the Vyborgsky district of Leningrad, where he is engaged up to the outbreak of war.
In December 1941, along with his mother he was evacuated from the siege of Leningrad in the Gorky Province. Under circumstances not completely clear, Rusov lost his right eye in an accident. According to the artist's son, this happened from a careless jab of whip. However already 1943, he moved to Kostroma city, where goes to the regional art school.
In 1945, in connection with the return to Leningrad Russov was transferred to Tavricheskaya Art School (now known as an Art College named after Nicholas Roerich), from which he graduated in 1947.Sergei V. Ivanov. Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School. St Petersburg, NP-Print, 2007. P.368
After graduation Russov entered the first course of Painting Department of Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin, studied of Yuri Neprintsev and Genrikh Pavlovsky. However, having studied for two years for health reasons had to leave class. In 1951–1955 Russov taught drawing in the secondary schools of Leningrad, while continuing to work on his painting skills using the experience gained while studying at the Academy.Sergei V. Ivanov. Riddles early portraits by Lev Russov.
Soon Russov shows his work in Leningrad Union of Artists and he is invited to participate in art exhibitions together with leading masters of the fine arts of Leningrad. At the Spring Art Exhibitions of 1954 and 1955, he presented works A Girl with a BowThe Spring Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1954. Exhibition Catalogue. Leningrad, Leningrad Union of Artists, 1954. P.17. (1954), A Boy and a Sea and Portrait of artist Veniamin KremerThe Spring Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1955. Catalogue. Leningrad, Leningrad Union of Artists, 1956. P.16. (both 1955) to attract attention to himself as a talented portrait painter.
In 1955, Russov was admitted to the Leningrad Union of Soviet artists on the recommendations of the famous painters Piotr Buchkin, Yuri Neprintsev and Veniamin Kremer. In addition to portraits, Russov during these years painted genre compositions, still lifes, landscapes, worked in the technique of oil painting, watercolors and woodcuts.
The year 1955 was marked for Russov by meetings with people who changed his perspective. He meets Ekaterina Vasilievna Balebina (born 29 December 1933, the daughter of Vasily Balebin, which he marries later, and they have a son named Andrei. She serves for Russov as a model for many paintings and portraits.
In the same year, Lev Russov met with Yevgeny Mravinsky, their relationship grew into a long-years friendship, to which we owe several portraits of the outstanding conductor, created during 1950–1980s.
In 1960–1980 Russov creative life was divided between the Leningrad art studio, the home in Fonarny Lane and the village of Pavshino on the Oredezh River, where on the high bank of the river he built a cottage with a workshop and worked many months each year.
Lev Alexsandrovich Russov died on 20 February 1987 in Leningrad in the sixty-second year of his life from heart disease. His works reside in museums and private collections in Russia, US, Norway, Great Britain, Sweden, France and other countries. The widow of the artist Ekaterina Vasilievna Russov outlived her husband by 15 years and died on June 20, 2002, in St. Petersburg at the sixty-ninth year of life.
In 1970, at the Leningrad Physical-Technical Institute named after A.F. Ioffe, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, it consisted of the only lifetime exhibition of Russov's works
Creativity
The creative life of Lev Russov, unusual and contradictory, contained two periods of unequal length and significance, one of which was devoted to painting, and the other mainly to wooden sculpture.
Portrait
According to the researchers of the artist's creativity, with the full strength Russov's pictorial talent was revealed in a series of portraits of his contemporaries painted in the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, which brought fame and recognition to the author. For ten years, Russov created a gallery of portraits that enriched the various types of modern portraiture. The beginning of it was laid on female images, among which portraits of the wife and young women from the circle of common friends stand out. Among them were Portrait of Catherine BalebinaSergei V. Ivanov. Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School. St Petersburg, NP-Print, 2007. P.65.[The Leningrad School of Painting. Essays on the History. St Petersburg, ARKA Gallery Publishing, 2019. Plate 40.] (1956), Portrait of Natali OrlovaSergei V. Ivanov. Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School. St Petersburg, NP-Print, 2007. P.151. (1956), Portrait of Young Woman in Red (1956), Portrait of Young Woman (1957), and others.
The known art works that continued them in the late 1950s and early 1960s – Portrait of wife (1959), Fresh Model (1961), Kira, Narine, Portrait of Maria Korsukova (all 1962), is distinguished by great decorativeness, generalization of the drawing and the sharpness of the composition, which Russov used in searching for means of enhancing the expressiveness of the image.
Characterizing the work of Russov, art historians Anatoli Dmitrenko and Ruslan Bakhtiyarov note:
Trips in the mid-1950s to Oredezh, first to Nakol village, and then to Pavshino, marked the beginning of a remarkable series of portraits of children and young people. Among them Zoya (1957), twin portrait of sisters Kira and Zoya (1958), Natasha (1958), Natasha, Little Bows (обе 1960). In the 1960s, this series of works was supplemented by portraits of the son Andrei with the Horse (1963), Portrait of the Son (1965) and others.
The portraits from this period date from a particularly productive phase of Rusov’s career and form a significant part of his artistic output. They are characterised by an emphasis on expressive imagery and bold compositional choices. His palette during this period frequently features pearl and purple tones.
Rusov’s painting style is marked by broad brushwork, dynamic compositions, and an interest in unconventional viewpoints. His portraits often focus on capturing transient expressions and moments, combining individual likeness with broader characteristics typical of his contemporaries.
During the work on the portrait, Rusov manages to capture the model’s fleeting state, which often eludes artists during prolonged posing. He knows how to keep the first impression to the end and convey it to the viewer. Therefore, in his works, nature is alive, and this feeling of a lively look of living people is almost the most exciting in the artist's portraits.Иванов С. В. Загадки ранних портретов Льва Русова.
Along with the expressiveness of the form, the portraits of Russov are distinguished by the depth and psychologism of the images, careful selection and study of model. Its another important reason for the success of his works. Some of his best works of this period Russov painted in the village of Pavshino on the Oredezh River near Leningrad, where in the late 1950s a group of young artists settled: G. Bagrov, E. Shram, K. Slavin and N. Slavina, L. Kuzov, A. Yakovlev, G. Antonov. Here on the Oredezh river, first in the village of Nakol, then in Pavshino Rusov finds the heroines of her new portraits: Aunt Polya, the sisters Zoya and Kira, the village girl Natasha Savelyeva. It was her portrait, painted by Rusov in 1958, for the first time that was truly noticed and appreciated by critics.
In critical reviews of the Fall Art Exhibition of 1958, Leningrad newspapers gave this portrait a prominent place. E. Kovtun, in his article Notes on an Art Exhibition in the newspaper Leningrad Evening dated 29 November 1958, wrote about the amazing immediacy and freshness of feelings that bribes in this work of L. Russov.Ковтун Е. Заметки о художественной выставке // Вечерний Ленинград, 1958, 29 ноября. M. Shumova in the article Do not surrender the won borders! in Leningrad Pravda of 2 December 1958, wrote about this work:
In the same years, Russov painted of known art workers, as well as workers and collective farmers. Among them Portrait of Young Collective Farmer (1956), Portrait of Yevgeny Mravinsky (1957),Русов Л. А. Портрет Е. А. Мравинского // 80 лет Санкт-Петербургскому Союзу художников. Юбилейная выставка. СПб, Цветпринт, 2012. С.208. Portrait of Actor Vladislav Strzhelchik (1957),1917–1957. Выставка произведений ленинградских художников. Каталог. Л., Ленинградский художник, 1958. С.28. Portrait of Young Caster (1961),Выставка произведений ленинградских художников 1961 года. Каталог. Л., Художник РСФСР, 1964. С.34. Aunt Pola with hen (1961), Stell-Maker (1972), and others. In a male portrait, regardless of the social status of the model, the artist is attracted by strong independent persons.
Mravinsky
Russov's acquaintance with Yevgeny Mravinsky in 1955 quickly grew into a friendship that lasted until the end of the artist's life. For thirty years, Rusov painted several portraits of the outstanding conductor, the most famous of which is A Portrait of E. A. Mravinsky of 1957.
The portrait was painted by Rusov for two years and was completed in 1957. In the same year it was first shown at the anniversary exhibition in the State Russian Museum.1917–1957. Выставка произведений ленинградских художников. Каталог. Л., Ленинградский художник, 1958. С.28. Unlike most famous portraits, Mravinsky is depicted in a home environment, when a person belongs only to himself and reveals himself in his true guise.
From the Memoirs of Alexander Mikhailovna Vavilina-Mravinsky, the widow of Yevgeny Mravinsky:
In the 1970s, Russov turned to the theme of two great contemporaries – Dmitry Shostakovich and Yevgeny Mravinsky, she found its embodiment in the picture The Leningrad Symphony. Conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky (1980). Russov worked for a long time on the concept and composition of the picture, rejecting one option after another. It is difficult to judge the extent to which its final version satisfied the artist. It can be assumed that, if he had the strength and time, this work could continue.
From the Memoirs of Alexander Mikhailovna Vavilina-Mravinsky, the widow of Yevgeny Mravinsky:
Thyl Ulenspiegel