Misha Brusilovsky (born Mikhail Brussilovsky; 7 May 1931 – 3 November 2016) was a Russian artist, painter and graphic artist. He was a Member of the Russian union of artists, an honored artist of the Russian Federation, a distinguished member of Russian Academy of Arts, a laureate of the "G. S. Mosin prize" and a winner of the Sverdlovsk region Governor's prize "For outstanding achievements in literature and art".
Biography Childhood
Misha Brusilovsky was born on 7 May 1931 in Kiev. His father, Shaya Shevelevich Brusilovsky (1904–43), was a military engineer who was killed in the war, and his mother, Frida Abramovna Goldberg (1906–89), worked in trade. He had one brother Seva – Vsevolod Brusilovsky (born 1936)."Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 13. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage".
In 1938 Misha's father was sent on an extended mission to the Far East, where he went with his whole family. They lived on the In Station in Birakan and Birobidzhan. At the beginning of 1941 the Brusilovsky family returned to Kiev, and the war broke out that June. Misha and his brother Seva were sent to the town of Troitsk"From an interview Misha Brusilovsky for "Komsomolskaya Pravda" in the South Urals to their aunt Raya, their father's sister. Their father went to the front, and their mother stayed in Kiev and joined them later. In 1943, their aunt Raya, a general practitioner and surgeon, was mobilised, and Misha went with her on a medical train. On the medical train he helped the doctors and the injured, and when it would stop for long periods he would go to the nearest villages to exchange salt for groceries for them."Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 14. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage".
Six months later, Brusilovsky returned to Kiev, which had been liberated from Germany. In an attempt to earn some money, he joined a group of boys who shined shoes on the square in front of the train station. Every evening, a grown-up lad with the nickname Kot (Tomcat) would come to the square. He was connected with the local criminal class, and he would take most of the money the boys had earned. If they tried to hide what they had earned, the boys were dealt with harshly."Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 18. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage".
Once, for Kot's birthday, Misha drew his portrait with coloured pencils, and showed it to him. Kot took the drawing, and a while later he brought Brusilovsky to a boarding school for gifted children.
In 1944, Brusilovsky started going to classes in the "Kiev boarding school for gifted children".
Studies Brusilovsky spent one year in the boarding school for gifted children. In 1945, he got a place in the Kiev Shevchenko State Art School, which was situated at the time in the building of the Kiev Art Institute. In 1952, he graduated from the art school and applied to the Kiev Art Institute, but he did not get a place because admissions were strictly regulated according to ethnicity.
He began earning some money by making copies of pictures by well-known Soviet artists for palaces of culture and other similar state institutions.
In 1953, Brusilovsky went to Moscow. He worked as an artist and designer in the All-Russia Exhibition Centre but he decided to further his education and went to Leningrad, where he began studying in the Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in the graphic design department. He studied with artists such as Ostap ShrubOstap Shrub and Minas Avetisyan. He graduated from the Institute in 1959 (his thesis supervisor was Alexei Pakhomov) and then he was assigned a job in the city of Sverdlovsk."Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 23. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage".
Creative work
Sverdlovsk In Sverdlovsk, Misha Brusilovsky began teaching drawing in Shadr Art College, and he also began working with the Central Ural Publishing House as an artist-illustrator. He met Vitaly Volovich, Herman Metelev, Andrei Antonov, Anatoly KalashnikovAnatoly Kalashnikov on the site "Rus – Art" and other Sverdlovsk artists, and he also met the artist Gennady MosinGennady Mosin on the site uralgallery.ru with whom he had been friendly back in the Repin Institute. He worked with Mosin on mounted pictures. He also took orders for monumental pieces."Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 26. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage".
The chairperson of the Sverdlovsk Union of Artists A. G. Vyaznikov, who in the interests of his own career was waging a wide-scale war against formalism "Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 27. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage". and some bureaucrats in the Sverdlovsk branch of the communist party had a negative reaction to Brusilovsky's work.
In 1961, for Brusilovsky's thirtieth birthday, the Sverdlovsk Union of Artists organised an exhibition of painting and graphic art in the Sverdlovsk House of the Artist, together with an exhibition of another Sverdlovsk artist K. Zyumbilov. On 10 May 1961, the newspaper "The Ural Worker", in "The audience responds" column, published a note by the name of "An unnecessary enterprise", signed by a certain "public servant N. Efimov""Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 58. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage". in which all of Brusilovsky's pieces which had been presented at the exhibition came under criticism.
The painting "1918"
In 1962 Brusilovsky began working in collaboration with Gennady Mosin on the painting "1918". The decision to paint the painting was a provocation to the chairman of the Union of Artists RSFSR Vladimir Serov, who did Historical-Revolutionary paintings and specialised in portrayals of Lenin.Rina Mihailova, "Ural genus of Mosin".
In 1963 a sketch of the painting was presented to the arts board of the organising committee of the "Socialist Ural" art exhibition.E. P. Alekseev. G Mosin and M. Brusilovsky’s painting "1918": An analysis of the artistic system. The board approved the sketch, and signed a contract with the artists. When the painting was almost complete, Mosin and Brusilovsky rolled up the canvas and painted an alternative version, portraying Lenin as a decisive person who was capable of doing anything in order to achieve his goals.Article by Rina Mikhailova "Painting as confession for the soul..." When Serov found out that the artists had not shown Lenin as quiet and humble, like Serov himself and other artists of the time had, he attempted to do everything he could to ban the painting while it was still being painted. E. F. Belashova, chairperson of the Union of Artists of the USSR, helped to promote the painting, and used it in her campaign against Serov.
"1918" was exhibited at the largest exhibitions in Moscow, given a special commendation by the Ministry of Defence, reproduced in the journals "Tvorchestvo" (1965 and 1967), "Ogoniok" (1967), and "Art" (1967, 1969), in the books "Art born of October" (1967) and "The glory of those days will never cease" (1968), represented Soviet art at the international Biennale exhibition in Venice in 1966 and at an exhibition of young artists in Berlin (GDR) in 1967. The painting became an acknowledged part of official Leniniana and brought fame throughout the Soviet Union for Gennady Mosin and Misha Brusilovsky."Misha Brusilovsky". Autor Tina Garnik The cinematographer Boris Shapiro made a film about the creators of the paintingMinistry of Culture of the Sverdlovsk region for the cinema journal "Soviet Ural". The painting is currently in the Volgograd Museum of Fine Arts. The first version of the painting was completed by Brusilovsky at the end of the 1980s and given to the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. The 1963 sketch of the painting is in the Perm State Art Gallery.
His fame throughout the Soviet Union did not change Brusilovsky's standing among the bureaucrats from the Sverdlovsk branch of the Communist Party, who added the artist's name to the "black" list of formalists,"Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 47. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage". and his relationship with the publishing house ended with his being officially forbidden from working.
Independent work Having lost his job at the publishing house and thus becoming free from the demands of the bu siness cycle,"Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 79. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage". Brusilovsky worked a lot in his studio, which became a place of pilgrimage for artists. In his work he turned to the theme of war ("The General" and "Garcia Lorca"), to mythological themes ("Leda", "Leda and the Swan", "Venus in the Grotto" and "The Rape of Europa"'), painted paintings based on folk takes ("The golden cockerel", "Little red riding-hood and the grey wolf"), and also paintings such as "Football", "Lena's dance", "Masks (City)", "Once in Sverdlovsk", "Yu. A. Gagarin" and many others".
In 1968 Brusilovsky became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR."Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 438. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage".
In 1969, working in collaboration with Gennady Mosin, he painted "Civil War Red commanders in the Urals", which depicted Blyukher, Frunze, Chapaev and other Red commanders in the Civil War in the Urals. The painting was displayed at the third regional "Socialist Ural" art exhibition in Chelyabinsk and caused a lot of debates because the style of the painting was very different from Socialist Realism.Svetlana Simakova. Newspaper "Evening Ekaterinburg" 22 February.
In 1972 Brusilovsky finished work on the painting "The Arkady Raikin Theatre", which was judged anti-Soviet. Because she acquired the painting for the Sverdlovsk Art Workers' House, the artistic director of the house Tatiana Nabrosova, Misha Brusilovsky's future wife, was called in to the KGB for questioning."Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 103. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage".
In 1976 Brusilovsky jointed the artists' group of the Ural Engineering Plant factory (Uralmash) consisting of 28 painters, graphic artists and sculptors."Misha Brusilovsky. World of the artist", 2002. Author: Aleksandr Ryumin. P. – 66. "Ural Gold Foundation" and the journal "Our Heritage".
In 1977 he painted the commissioned work "Group portrait of Uralmash team of smiths (B. Shulenov, K. Le, A. Kordukov: foreman, A. Moskvin, V. Venchinov, I. Bersenev, V. Erer)", which was included in the retrospective publication Artists and Uralmash" in 1983.
In 1984 he painted "Golubskovsky sovkhoz" ("Pig-breeding farm in the Golubskovsky sovkhoz"), which caused another scandal.
In this way the museum acquired Mikhail Brusilovsky's wonderful canvas "Pig-breeding farm in the Golubskovsky sovkhoz", where the little artist looks shyly up at shapely milkmaids. The painting caused a huge scandal in its time: communists from the Union of Artists reproached the artist for using a traditional composition, instead of an infant putting a pig into the arms of its Madonna.
Boris Yeltsin, who held the role of first secretary of the Sverdlovsk branch of the Communist Party at the time, publicly declared that the painting was harmful to Soviet art.
Paris: Basmadjan Gallery