At 19.00 on November 18th, as part of the additional program for the “Deineka/ Samokhvalov” exhibition, Elena Voronovich will give a lecture at the Manege titled “The Life and Work of Alexander Deineka.”

Deineka was one of the central figures of artistic life in the USSR during the 1920s and 30s, a master whose talent was “focused with particular acuteness on conflicts and hopes.” Sharply feeling the perpetual motion of life, Deineka in his works turns both to reality and to the realm of art, not only the classical, but also the contemporary – boldly borrowing ideas from the Holder’s paintings, Ignatovich’s photographs, and Eisenstein’s films. At the same time, self-citation is innate in his work – once an image was captured from reality, it lived in his work for decades, embodied in different techniques.

Deineka defined the style of his time and established a new type of hero. He became one of the creators of the visual dictionary of Soviet art, and the images he discovered were later actively used in Socialist realist paintings until they became a cliché. During the 1960s, his work proved to be a unique bridge through time and the basis of the formation of a severe style, while during the 2000s, it served as a special point of attraction and interest in the context of a new understanding of Soviet art.

About the lecturer: Elena Voronovich is an art historian, curator, and a researcher of the first half of the 20th century in the department of painting at the Tretyakov Gallery.
Entrance to the lecture is free. Seats are limited, so registration is required.



Translated by Samuel Driver.