"Sculptor Ekaterina Nikiforova-Kirpichnikova:
Takeoff and Tragedy"

In the history of Russian sculpture of the first half of the twentieth century, one cannot find the name of this author: she is known mainly thanks to her remarkable portrait by A. S. Golubkina called "Lilac", which captures the charming image of a young girl. It exists in marble (State Russian Museum) and bronze (State Tretyakov Gallery). In essence, the bronze version reproduces the marble original, characterized by the plastic embodiment of the idea, combined with the reflection of the inner state of a person through thin, closed individual facial features. But Ekaterina Dmitrievna Nikiforova was not only a model for Golubkina, but also a participant in many exhibitions, which was part of the same artistic associations, and from this side she is of interest.

The exhibition of sculptures by Ekaterina Dmitrievna is small in volume, but it presents everything that the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts has from the master’s heritage. Added to this are several graphic works that have never been exhibited before.

Under such conditions, the general characterization of the sculptor’s creative heritage, naturally, can only be preliminary. The most mature are examples of wooden sculpture, with a clear sense of the material and the possibilities of artistic interpretation of the relief, with the purposeful use of graphicality and flatness as expressive means. In a word, we can talk about the art of a bygone era, separated from the present day by a century, but which has not at all lost its novelty, which is characteristic only of great artistic phenomena. These phenomena are created by the labor of not only authors with great names, but also numerous workers, the memory of which sometimes turns out to be on the verge of oblivion.

The exhibition will run until January 16.