Dmitry Isidorovich Mitrohin, also Mitrokhin (; 15 May 1883 – 7 November 1973) was a Russian and Soviet graphic artist, illustrator, master of easel engraving, etching and lithography, author of many book illustrations, a huge cycle of miniatures in the genre chamber still life. Art critic, member of many art associations, Professor of the Higher Institute of photography and photographic technique (1919-1926), Professor of the Printing Department of the Higher Artistic and Technical Institute (1924-1930 a course in book graphics) in Leningrad. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1969).
Biography He was born in Yeysk, Krasnodor Krai, Russia. In 1902, he joined the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and transferred to the Stroganov Art School in 1904 to study book illustration. In 1905, Mitrohin moved to Paris and attended drawing classes by Eugène Grasset and Théophile Steinlen. He returned to Russia in 1908, and settled in Saint Petersburgh between 1912 and 1914, illustrating children's books (including Arthur Ransome's Old Peter's Russian Tales) and other Russian books such as Lukomorie.
From 1919 to 1923, Dmitry Mitrohin was a custodian in the drawings and engravings department of the Russian Museum. In 1919, he also started teaching at the Higher Photography Institute, and then at the Academy of Arts from 1924 to 1934. In 1944, he moved back to Moscow to do book illustration until the 1960s. He died in Moscow in 1973.Pskov Artist, graphic artist, illustrator D.I. Mitrokhin: pages of life and work
Work
Dmitry Isidorovich Mitrokhin, who lived a great creative life, had the good fortune to study, to cooperate, to be in close relations, to be in associations and societies with many artists, among whom there were those whose trace in the art of the 20th century is comparable to the influence on the course of history of the most important discoveries of the era. The first lines of the artist's autobiographical notes contain the names of M.F. Larionov, N. S. Goncharova and A. V. Fonvizin, who studied side by side and were friends with him - S. T. Konenkov and S. V. Malyutin, with whom he worked in the ceramic artel "Murava".Book about Mitrokhin. Articles, letters, memoirs. Compiled by L. V. Chaga. Preparation of the text and notes by I. Ya. Vasilyeva M .: Artist of the RSFSR. 1986
In Paris, Dmitry Mitrokhin, despite the constrained circumstances and constant employment with work ("high life was not for me"), communicates quite a lot. Almost seventy years later, he recalled his visits to the salon of E. Kruglikova, which, like her Paris workshop, turned into a kind of Russian cultural center, where the "high society" gathered, "but for all those present, art was the main thing", - visits to Maximilian Voloshin, in whose house, according to the artist, he felt "more at ease", where many compatriots who were flying around Lutetia also dropped in, and where he once had a chance to meet with Konstantin Balmont (they were briefly acquainted with 1904), "who brought his daughter, a girl, in a red coat" - here she is in memory of a 90-year-old artist! And these memories are filled with vivid content, visible images of sketches, when he talks about the immediate purpose of his stay in the then capital of arts.Book about Mitrokhin. Articles, letters, memoirs. Compiled by L. V. Chaga. Preparation of the text and notes by I. Ya. Vasilyeva M .: Artist of the RSFSR. 1986
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Talking about his Parisian times, it is not by chance, and not without a tinge of pride, he notes that posters of Toulouse-Lautrec were still hanging on the streets of the French capital - according to D.I.Mitrokhin himself, who had a strong influence on him - as, indeed, and on Paul Klee,Susanna Partsch. Paul Klee. 1879—1940. Benedikt Tachen. Köln. 1990. with whose influence, for some time, was bizarrely combined in the line of the artist's work that he was aware of - as well as the impact, at certain stages, of his great interest in the art of Henri Matisse and Paul Cézanne, Constantin Guise.
In different periods of comprehending the paths of expressiveness and mastery, this interest was focused on their different manifestations, and with a different measure of their impact on the artist's worldview, - then ephemeral and almost opportunistic, and therefore easily and painlessly overcome, what were, for example, salon, beardsley, modern trends, - those that required a longer "neutralization", purely decorative, stylized ornamental, popular prints and printed motifs, or, on the contrary, in the form of a deep, essential understanding, which was realized in the artist's system of views - Western European and Japanese engraving - on fundamental principles that were not limited to an understanding of technology - engraving in general, drypoint, chiaroscuro, lithography, in particular. "But, having gone through these hobbies," M.V Alpatov squeals, "he returned to such values of art that outgrow the boundaries of time and space and exist everywhere".Dmitry Mitrokhin. - Rusakov Yu. A. Selected works of art history. St. Petersburg .: Aletheia. 2000. P. 221-242
It is significant that in the very first words about the beginning of his apprenticeship, the artist recalls the library of the school, "about the enormous and exciting happiness" that "gave the collection of engravings of the Rumyantsev Museum".
To no less extent, in any case - on the possession of the means of self-expression in terms of technical, than contact with the product of printing - a book (in terms of intellectual development - knowledge of graphics), the artist's acquaintance with the printing process, including manual, which he I thoroughly knew from my grandfather's childhood workshop - "The typesetters were my friends. The words typesetting, veneer, space, letter, size, cliche, proofreading are familiar from childhood".
Book graphics
Dmitry Mitrokhin owes his first experiments in book graphics to the teacher of watercolors of the Stroganovka S. I. Yaguzhinsky, in 1904, who offered him "a small job for publishing houses", and appreciated it - Valery Bryusov, at that time - the chief editor of "Scorpion". Upon his return in 1908 from Paris, where he got acquainted with S.P. Yaremich, who in turn introduced the artist to E.S.Kruglikova, who had lived in France for many years, to the famous Polish sculptor Eduard Wittig, in whose workshop Dmitry Mitrokhin lived in difficult days, he moved to St. Petersburg, and began to work systematically as a book illustrator, which quickly brought him fame, and which was facilitated by his acquaintance with the artists of the "World of Art". At the initial stage of the successful development of D. I. Mitrokhin's creativity as a book artist, magazine illustrator, of course, the assistance of E. E. Lanceray, who sent publishers to him, also affected ("I drew models with him. He invited them for his painting in the hall of the library of the Academy of Arts ... The first years of my life in St. Petersburg were very much brightened by the attention of Evgeny Evgenievich Lanceray. " - D. Mitrokhin. Autobiographical Notes (1973)). At the same time, he begins to engrave on linoleum (at V.D. Falileev), - "He engraved color compositions, he printed not with oil paints, but with watercolors - in the Japanese way". Collaborates with many book publishers: "I. N. Knebel "," Golike and Vilborg "," Enlightenment "," Pechatnik "," M. and S. Sabashnikovs "(for them D. I. Mitrokhin developed a printer's mark)," Apollo "," M. V. Popov "and many others. others. Continues studying the collections of engravings in the library of the Academy of Arts and the Hermitage. Works a lot on illustrations for children's books, over magazine screensavers, double titles, endpapers, etc. Rare in beauty and sonorous expressiveness, chased performance - "Uyezdnoye" by E. Zamyatin (1916; publishing house of M. V. Popov), "Russian Tales of Grandfather Peter" by Arthur Ransom (1916; London and Edinburgh) and many others.
The fact that most of all speaks of what Dmitry Mitrokhin is as an artist of the book is extremely important, while she was, albeit a large, but far from the main stage in his work - always, working on the design of this or that publication, with all the variety of graphic techniques to which the artist turned, he was guided by a single principle for all elements of the book - starting with the cover, endpapers and ending with type, decor - all of them are subject to stylistic commonality.
1911 - illustrates children's books by I. Knebel's publishing house (until 1914). 1912 - works on the covers of the series for the publishing house M. and S. Sabashnikovs. 1913 - collaboration in the magazines "Satyricon" (until 1914) and "New Satyricon" (until 1917); - cover of the "Cup" by V. A. Zhukovsky (publishing house I. N. Knebel, Moscow); - in March at the invitation of the Dresden Society "Kunstverein" participates with G. Yakulov in an exhibition of watercolors. 1914 - decorative borders of the magazine "Lukomorye" (until 1917). 1915-1916 - made many book covers. 1916 - admitted to the "World of Art"; - performs graphic design for the book by Arthur Ransome "Russian Tales of Grandfather Peter" (A. Ransome "Old Peter's Russian Tales" - London); - at the end of the year, he started working in the department of engravings and drawings of the Russian Museum (further work for printing is in the list). 1917 - mobilization into the army with a secondment to the Trophy Commission; - in September, in connection with the death of his father, he goes to Yeisk, where he will stay until the end of next year - "I devoted a lot of time to writing from nature, worked a lot with lead pencil and watercolors, painted landscapes, interiors, still lifes and portraits."
In Soviet times, the artist successfully developed this work, which has absorbed him and is performed by him with love, enthusiastically and very successfully combining it with engraving, etching, and lithography. He designed and illustrated a huge number of books and magazines in various publishing houses - "The lights", "Petropolis", "Petrograd", "Think". "Surf" and many others, in the best of them - Academia (with which he collaborated for about six years): "Seven Love Portraits" by A. de Rainier (1920, 1921; Petrograd), Marina Tsvetaeva's fairy tale poem "Tsar Maiden" (1922); - perky feather drawings made in a manner that has already become traditional for the artist for the decoration of Edgar Poe "Golden Beetle" (1922), "Epsine" by Ben Johnson (1920, 1921; "Petropolis"), - illustrations by Victor Hugo (1923), Henri Barbusse, Octave Mirbeau, "Comedy Books" by Aristophanes (1930), "Ethiopics" by Heliodorus (1932) and many others, - the author of various decorative elements of many publications.
1918 - returns to Petrograd at the end of the year; - Appointed head of the Department of Engravings and Drawings of the Russian Museum. 1919 - Professor of the Higher Institute of Photography and Photographic Technique (until 1923); - works on covers for the "People's Library" of the State Publishing House; - series covers (up to 1926). 1921 - the book of Vs. Voinov "Book signs of DI Mitrokhin" (other publications about D. I. Mitrokhin are on the list). 1924 - Professor of the Printing Department of the Academy of Arts (course of book graphics - until 1934).