"Vladimir Kudryashev (1902–1944). Graphics, sculpture"

At the exhibition, residents and guests of the city will have the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of one of the prominent representatives of Soviet art of the 1920-1930s, whose career began in Kazan and continued in Moscow. Among his contemporaries, Vladimir Kudryashev was known primarily as a sculptor who achieved success in creating monumental and decorative sculptures that adorned the streets and parks of Moscow and other cities of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, most of the artist’s works in this genre have not survived to the present day, and only photographs preserved in the family archive give an idea of them.

However, the work of Vladimir Kudryashev is not limited to sculpture. The exhibition will feature his paintings and graphic works. Guests of the exhibition have a chance to look at Vladimir Kudryashev, not only as a famous and successful master of "socialist realism" of the 1930s, but also as a bold experimenter, avant-garde artist of the 1920s in graphic works of the Kazan period. The artist will also appear as an attentive and loving family man, who created in the 1930s touching sketches of his family members - his wife and children, who became models of his sculptures in the Moscow period. Thus, the exhibition organically combines the public and intimate aspects of the artist’s life.

The famous Moscow "Galeev-Gallery" took part in the creation of the exhibition, which in its activity pays much attention to the study and presentation of Kazan art. It was in this gallery in 2006 that the first personal exhibition of Vladimir Kudryashev took place. The Kazan exposition is in many ways different from the Moscow one (as well as the Cheboksary one, which took place in April 2018), including a number of works not previously exhibited. First of all, these are posters and a wooden sculpture of the early 1920s from the collection of the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan. Regulars of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan will already see the familiar works of V. Kudryashev from the museum’s collection, including etchings from the Kazan Kremlin album (1922). Most of the exhibits are provided by the daughter of the artist Irina Vladimirovna Kudryasheva, who in recent years has been studying the work of her father. She will come from Moscow and take part in the opening ceremony of the exhibition.

The exhibition project in the spring of 2019 participated in the competition of museum projects of the Russian Cultural Foundation “Genius Mesto” and was awarded a special prize.

The exhibition runs until July 28, 2019

Olga Ulemnova, Anna Cheblakova