"Unique intonation". Exhibition of works by Vera Mylnikova and students

The Russian Academy of Arts presents the exhibition "Unique intonation". The large-scale exposition, located on two floors of the MVK RAKh, demonstrates about 90 paintings made by the academician of the RAKh Vera Andreevna Mylnikova and the students of the Creative Workshop of Monumental Painting in St. Petersburg, headed by her. These are fifteen young but successful artists: Sergei Danchev, Sergei Koval, Stanislav Miroshnikov, Alexander Tyschenko, Sergei Sekirin, Anton Melentyev, Evgeny Yachny, Ivan Pokidyshev, Grigory Kadykov, Chermen Gugkaev, Rustam Yakhikhanov, Ivan Zhuravlev, Arseny Bagnasikov, Tchatikova Olga Fomina.

The creative workshops of the Russian Academy of Arts are a research laboratory for the study of the processes and prospects for the development of contemporary fine arts. They were founded in 1947 when the quality of arts education was emphasized. The decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR united art institutes and art schools in Moscow and Leningrad, postgraduate studies, workshops, laboratories, a publishing house, a museum and a library into an academic structure. Thus, a unified system of art education "school - university - academy" was created, in which the main attention was paid to the professional development of future masters, starting from school age and up to graduating from the creative workshops of specialists of various art trends.

In 1961, three academic creative workshops were formed in St. Petersburg, including a workshop for monumental painting. For more than fifty years, its leader was the People’s Artist of the USSR, full member and vice-president of the Russian Academy of Arts, Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of Lenin, Stalin and three State Prizes of the USSR and RSFSR Andrei Andreevich Mylnikov (1919-2012). Today this workshop is led by his daughter and student, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Vera Mylnikova.

From the first years of its existence, the artists of the workshop took part in the creation of works of monumental art for the decoration of public buildings in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities of Russia. One of the first works of the artists of the workshop was the painting of the school in Leningrad, dedicated to the history of Russia, as well as mosaics for the monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad. In the late 1970s, artists worked on the creation of tapestries for the House of Soviets of the Russian Federation in Moscow, where Vera Andreevna also worked. Murals were created for the theater. Evgeniya Demmeni, mosaics for the Alexander Nevsky Square metro station. Also among the achievements of the artists of the Creative Workshop of different years is participation in the reconstruction of the artistic decoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

During its existence, the workshop has produced several generations of painters who have become honored artists, State Prize laureates, academicians and professors. Currently, a whole galaxy of teachers works at the Ilya Repin St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, including some of the first trainees in Mylnikov’s workshop: head of the painting department V.S.Pesikov, head of the monumental painting workshop S.N. Repin, head of the monumental painting workshop A. K. Bystrov, head of the easel painting workshop Yu. V. Kalyuta, head of the easel painting workshop Kh. V. Savkuev, dean of the faculty of painting A. V. Chuvin. The transfer of the accumulated experience from generation to generation by the artists of St. Petersburg is a clear example of continuity,which is based on the preservation and development of the historically established academic school.

High professional training, first received within the walls of the Repin Institute, and then continued in the Creative Workshop of the Russian Academy of Arts, allows artists to successfully work in different genres and transfer their skills to young authors. The personality of the teacher is of great importance in the choice of topics and plots, in understanding the issues and problems of art. A young author should know what he is doing and what he wants, not to let stereotypes into his works. Vera Mylnikova, as the head of the workshop, sees her task in helping the young artist find his own path in creativity, without losing the foundations of the classical education received within the walls of the Academy. It is important for her to instill in her students strength and self-confidence. She says that every artist can become a great master,since art is the direct embodiment of a person’s spiritual strength.

The combination of the experience of the past with the new thinking of young authors gives rise to works of a high artistic level, once again proving that a true academic school provides a wide range of creative development. In the works of young artists, our contemporaries, themes characteristic of the Russian tradition and of this workshop find a new interpretation. Deprived of verbose narrative, the images on large canvases touch with the depth and precision of the situations affected, evoking a spiritual response, recalling the very important and intimate. Acquaintance with the exhibition will undoubtedly be of interest to both specialists and lovers of fine art, as it provides an opportunity to look into the process of the formation of the mastery of artists - followers of the best traditions of the realistic school.

Based on an article by the head of the Creative Workshop of Monumental Painting of the Russian Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, academician of the Russian Academy of Arts V. A. Mylnikova and an article by the head of the Creative Workshops of the Russian Academy of Arts A. A. Troshin.