"Report from the war." Exhibition of Frontline and Military Drawing

From June 17 to July 31, the exhibition “Report from the War” from the collection of the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts and the Tula Regional Art Museum will work in the museum’s halls (104 Lenin St.).

In terms of its content, the exhibition presents two sections: the front-line and the military drawing, that is, the works consciously directly at the front, and - in the rear, after the end of creative business trips to the front. Among them - full-scale front-line sketches, portraiture, landscapes - the richest annals of the war.

The authors of the presented works are front-line artists, members of the M.B. Grekova, participants in military events. Among them are famous masters of graphics: Kukryniksy, M.G. Platunov, V.S. Svarog, G.G. Nyssky, M.A. Dobrov, K.I. Finogenov, D.M. Tarkhov, Yu.V. Vorogushin, E.K. Okas.

Among the landscapes of the war, a special place is occupied by the images of the besieged Leningrad, executed by M.G. Platunov (four sheets from the famous gouache series “Leningrad in blockade”).

Two small watercolors of M.M. are of undoubted interest for Kaluga residents. Dneprovsky, received at the exhibition from the Tula Museum ("Landscape. The village of Petrishchevo"). The whole life of Dneprovsky was associated with the Kaluga Art Museum, whose director he was for two decades. He is the author of the book "Artists of Kaluga", a bibliographic dictionary "Artists of Kaluga the edges".

Closely connected with the Kaluga region and the work of M.A. Dobrova is a remarkable graphic artist, author of elegant, technically impeccable engravings, distinguished by their exceptional culture of attitude to form, line and color. An excellent example of his work is the drawing “The Liberation of Kaluga”, executed in 1942 as a preparatory sketch for etching.

The cartoons, posters and “TASS Windows” created by famous satirical artists Kukryniksy (M.V. Kupriyanov, P.N. Krylov, N.A. Sokolov) were very popular during the years of World War II. The exhibition presents their caricature "Himmler’s Volkssturm" from the collection of the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts.

The work of military artists, full of sincere feelings and observation, is comparable to the literary essays of frontline writers and correspondents who wrote down their impressions during real events on the front line.