Alexander Samokhvalov (artist)

Alexander Nikolayevich Samokhvalov (Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Самохва́лов; 21 August 1894 – 20 August 1971) was a Soviet Russian painter, watercolorist, graphic artist, illustrator, art teacher and Honored Arts Worker of the RSFSR, who lived and worked in Leningrad. He was a member of the Leningrad branch of Union of Artists of Russian Federation, and was regarded as one of the founders and brightest representatives of the Leningrad school of painting, most famous for his genre and portrait painting.

Biography
Alexander Nikolayevich Samokhvalov was born on 21 August 1894 in the town of Bezhetsk, located in the Tver Governorate of the Russian Empire.

In 1914, Samokhvalov enrolled in the Higher Art School of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. He studied under Vasily Beliaev, Gugo Zaleman, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, and Vasily Shukhayev; among his teachers, the most important was Petrov-Vodkin, with his dimensional system of painting design and correlation of colour and form.



Samokhvalov traveled with Petrov-Vodkin to Samarkand in 1921 as a member of the Expedition of Institute for History of Material Culture, and it was a critical moment in his life and outlook. Another powerful influence on his style was his participation in the restoration process of Georgy's Cathrdral in Staraya Ladoga in 1926, where he discovered an ancient Russian painting. He graduated from Petrograd VKHUTEIN (known as the Ilya Repin Institute since 1944) in 1923. His diploma was "Dressing-down" (State Russian Museum), where he tried to use "spherical perspective" in the spirit of Petrov-Vodkin, and came close to surrealism.

Samokhvalov had participated in art exhibitions since 1914, and in 1917 he took part in the exhibition of the Mir iskusstva. He painted portraits, genre and historical paintings, as well as monumental and easel painting, black-and-white art, sculpture, decorative and applied art, and illustrations for fiction and poetry. He produced book graphics from the middle of the 1920s, and began working with scenography in the 1930s at the Bolshoi Drama Theater and Russian State Pushkin Academy Drama Theater in Leningrad and Novosibirsk.

He was very successful in images of heroes of labour and sport (Conductressa (1928); Girl with the kernel (1933), famous watercoloured series Builder of Metro (1933—1934), all at State Russian Museum), all of which had peculiar surrealistic charm. He was the creator of a significant work of the Soviet Epoch of the 1930s with his painting Girl in T-shirt (1932). In 1937, it was awarded the gold medal at the International Art Fair in Paris, France. At the same time, Samokhvalov took two Grand-Prix awards for his panel Soviet Athletics and illustrations for The History of a Town by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Samokhvalov was a member of the "Krug" (1926–1929) and "October" (1930–1932) artists' associations, and was a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists beginning in 1932. His leading theme was Soviet youth. He was awarded an honorary title from the Honored Art Worker of Russian Federation in 1967.

Samokhvalov created many genre and historical paintings by commission; among them were Sergey Kirov Greeting Parad of Athletes (1935, State Russian Museum), Appearance of Vladimir Lenin in All-Russian Congress of Soviets (1939, State Russian Museum), Parade of Victory (1947, sketch for Palace of the Soviets, private collection), Sergey Kirov and Iosif Stalin at the Building of Volkhov Power Station (1950, private collection, London), and others. Among his works also easel paintings: Vladimir Lenin and Iosif Stalin at the 2nd Congress of RSDLP (1939, State Russian Museum), Front Friends (1946), Stalingrad Resident, Thinking of Battle Days (both 1948), Portrait of Yevgeny Mravinsky (1950), In the Sun (1953), Cafe "Gurzuf" (1956), Portrait of Maria Kleshar (1958).

From 1948 to 1951, Samokhvalov taught in the monumental painting department at the Leningrad Higher School of Art and Industry named Vera Mukhina, and he authored a memoir titled My Way of Creation (1977), At the Time of Restless Sun (1996).

His personal exhibitions were in Leningrad (1963, 1968, 1975, State Russian Museum and "House of Writes"), Moscow (1964), Saint Petersburg (1994, 2014 State Russian Museum), Tver (1994).

In 1967, Samokhvalov was awarded the Order of Lenin for outstanding contribution to development of Soviet art.

Alexander Nikolayevich Samokhvalov died in Leningrad on 20 August 1971. His paintings and graphics reside in the State Russian Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery, other art museums, and private collections in Russia, Italy, France, the US, Japan, Germany, England and throughout the world.

Awards

 * Gold Medal of International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts, Paris, 1925 (for poster).
 * Grand Prix of Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, Paris, 1937 (for the Monumental painting "The Physical Culture of USSR").
 * Grand Prix of Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, Paris, 1937 (for the Illustration of the story of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin "The History of a Town").
 * Gold Medal of Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, Paris, 1937 (for the painting Girl in a T-shirt).
 * Order of Lenin, Moscow, 1967 (for outstanding contribution to development of the Soviet art).