Born in Polotsk, Vitebsk province in the family servant. Ilya showed early artistic inclinations and in the age of 16 he entered the Moscow higher art studios (VKhUTEMAS), where he studied with such teachers as P. Kuznetsov, L. Bruni, V. Favorsky, N. Chernyshev. In 1929 he participated in art exhibitions, and in 1930 graduated from the Department of monumental painting and was drafted into the red Army.
After a year's service in the autumn of 1931, he returned to creative work. His first easel painting “the assault On coal,” written in 1932, the same year he became a member of the Union of Soviet artists. For the anniversary exhibition “XV years of the red army”, the artist created a large painting “the revolutionary military Council of the Special red banner far Eastern red Army.” Romance of overcoming difficulties is the leitmotif of both pictures.
A special role in the life and work Lukomski played the Great Patriotic war. In the winter of 1942 he was assigned to the front and in the group of the Studio of military artists named after M. B. Grekov went to Stalingrad. Here unfolded such battle scenes, since the story previously did not know. Fierce battles were fought for each house, each building of factories turned into fortresses.
After Stalingrad – Leningrad front and then in the heavy roads of war. Ilya Abelevich, like his fellow students, was with the red Army, a Grand path of advance on the enemy from the Volga to the spree, from Stalingrad to Berlin, showing an image of a brave and courageous patriot, who is equally familiar and weapons of war, and a Hiking artist's palette. Not by chance, he was awarded the medal “For military merit”.
Deep penetration into the psychology of his contemporaries, a benevolent attitude towards them gave him a chance in the war years and the postwar period, creating hundreds of portraits that reveal the character of the people who defended his native country – the ordinary soldiers and generals, pilots, nurses, soldiers and Marines.
The portraits of soldiers, seen and experienced by the artist himself, formed the basis of a large composite paintings “Oath of Stalingrad” created by the late Chelishchev in 1950. The main theme of this picture is the great love of his Homeland, commitment to the last breath to fight for her freedom. Currently this work is in our Museum.
Ilya Lukomsky was a man of his time - dedicated to work and loyal to the era. He was like the incarnation of the eternal romantic of youth, dreams of a new life, full of camaraderie, equality, and peaceful creation.
