Spring Day (Pozdneev)

Spring Day (Russian: ''Весенний день (картина Н. Позднеева)'' is a painting by Russian artist Nikolai Matveevich Pozdneev (1930–1978). It was painted in 1959.

History
Spring Day was one of the first original genre compositions by Pozdneev. He developed the theme for the first time raised three years earlier in his graduate painting From the School (1956, now in the Pskov Painting Gallery). The first version of the painting was shown in 1960 in the principal Art Show in Leningrad and in Moscow. The artist was not fully satisfied and repainted the picture, making it a more extended vertically. A group of children was shifted from the center to the upper left corner. The bold decision proved justified: composition of the painting acquired aspiration, which is consistent with the general concept of the work. The palette of the picture became lighter. As a result, in the work began to fully feel the air of spring and hope, in tune with the mood of the era turn of the decades.

From 1960 to 1980, Spring Day was kept in the artist's family. In 1994, after a long pause, it was featured at the Painting of 1940-1990s. The Leningrad School Art Show in the Exhibition Halls of the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists.

In 1995–1996, Spring Day was exhibited in Saint Petersburg in the Nekrasov Memorial Museum at the exhibitions The Lyrical motive in painting of artists of the WWII generation, and Painting of 1940-1990s. The Leningrad School.

The painting was reproduced on the official poster and cover of the exhibition catalog.

In 2007, Spring Day was reproduced and described among 350 art works by Leningrad artists in the book ''Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School'', published in Russian and English.

In 2019 the painting was reproduced in the book ''The Leningrad School of Painting. Essays on the History'', published in Russian and English.