Exhibition "Expressive Realism of Ivan Zakharovich Pushkarev (1904-1991). Painting"

September 15 at 16-00 in the main exposition of the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts will open the exhibition "Expressive Realism of Ivan Zakharovich Pushkarev (1904-1991) Painting". From the funds of the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts (104 Lenin St., second floor of the main exhibition)

The fate of the artist Ivan Zakharovich Pushkarev was more than dramatic. He survived the terrible hardships of the revolution, famine, World War II… But even more dramatic - and even tragic - the fate of his art. It so happened that almost everything that he created in the first half of his life died in the summer of 1941 - in Smolensk, destroyed and burned by German air bombs.

Nevertheless, the artist was able to rebuild his creative destiny. He managed to pave his own path already in the post-war art culture of Russia.

And the artistic activity of Pushkarev began in Smolensk, of which he was a native. And in the hottest time - at the height of the revolution and civil war. It was then that he taught him the basics of modern pictorial art (and not just crafts), the now half-forgotten master of ardent, expressive painting, Vladimir Stranikh, who directed the Smolensk studio of Proletkult. This was the favorite student of Konstantin Korovin, the great Russian impressionist.

For some time, Pushkarev also studied at the architectural faculty of the Smolensk Polytechnic Institute. But after this faculty was liquidated, Pushkarev goes to Moscow, plunges headlong into the colorful and terrible life of Moscow at the turn of military communism and NEP. It was a very dangerous adventure, fortunately, ended happily for Pushkarev.

And a few years later he finds himself in Rostov-on-Don. And it was here, in the late 1920s, that first participated in an art exhibition. And it’s very successful. Three works of Pushkarev were immediately acquired by the local art museum - as especially talented. And then he first hears the word "expressionism": this is how the local art experts defined the essence of Pushkarev’s painting.

But soon the famine begins, which, as you know, captured not only Ukraine, but also the southern regions of Russia. In order not to die of hunger, Pushkarev returns to his native Smolensk. And quickly becoming one of the most active participants in the local art life. His works are exhibited at Smolensk and metropolitan art exhibitions. Artistic criticism draws benevolent attention to him.

Pushkarev becomes one of the organizers of the Smolensk Union of Soviet Artists, one of the very first associations of this kind (it arose on December 31, 1939 - more than a quarter century before the Union of Artists of the USSR).

At the very beginning of World War II, Pushkarev was at the front, and then - in captivity. Being released from captivity, it falls into the "filtration" military unit. And only after that it returns to Smolensk again, almost completely destroyed. And then he moves to Kaluga.

By this time, Pushkarev was already over forty years old. At first, until the death of Stalin, he creates canvases that are noticeably oriented towards classical European painting.

But over the years, the expression that, apparently, was originally characteristic of Pushkarev’s painting, is more and more manifested. But this, of course, is not self-sufficient expressiveness, not a kind of rebellious self-expression.

The relaxedness, courage of the brush here is an expression of free movement, the development of artistic thought, its intense formation. Pushkarev passionately peered into the faces of people, in the guise of things, in the face of nature.

In his still lifes and landscapes there is beauty, but there are no beauties. They are truly beautiful.

But perhaps the portraits created by Pushkarev are especially remarkable. In them, the social characteristic surprisingly organically develops into an individual characteristic. It is important to Pushkarev what is the social status of the person he portrays. But more important for him, what is the spiritual becoming a model.

The most important thing here is the disclosure of the spiritual life of a person. And every portrait is an artistic discovery in man - a burning alloy of personality traits, instant and eternal.