Sergey
Vasilyevich Gerasimov

Sergey Vasilievich Gerasimov (September 26, 1885, Mozhaisk - April 20, 1964, Moscow) - Russian and Soviet painter, stylistically passed the path from the Impressionist to the socialist realist, master of book illustration, portraitist, teacher. Director MGHI them. V.I. Surikov in 1943-1948

Features of the artist Sergey Gerasimov: stylistically traversed the path from impressionist to socialist realist, this serious master created a number of works that became “textbook”. Some time against the background of works that met the demands of the time and performed at a high professional level, his pictorial lyrics - landscapes, still lifes - were almost lost. Subsequently, the situation changed, and today Gerasimov, a landscape painter, is no less famous than Gerasimov-muralist.

Famous paintings by artist Sergei Gerasimov: "Mother of a Partisan", "Collective farm holiday", "Cloud", "Early Spring", "Ice has passed."

Coming from a large peasant family, Sergey Gerasimov began his studies at the age of 16, having entered the Moscow Stroganov School of Industrial Art, having completed his studies in 1907, continued his education at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His teachers wereSergey Ivanov and Konstantin Korovin,Valentin Serov and Leonid Pasternak. In the early period of creativity Gerasimov preferred to work in watercolor, painted landscapes, scenes from folk life, portraits. From young years, the artist taught: his teaching activities began in 1912, in the art school of the printing house of the Association I. Sytin, and lasted until 1914, when Gerasimov was drafted into the army.

After the October Revolution, Sergei Gerasimov was actively involved in the new life, creating, in particular, the monumental panel "The Master of the Earth" (1918), which decorated the former Moscow City Duma. The painter’s painting techniques undergo changes in this period, from the so-called “Russian post-impressionism” to the aesthetics of constructivism and further, at the behest of time and historical realities, to social realism. From silvery light strokes to a colorful extravaganza, bright portraits of contemporaries demanded by the Soviet propaganda machine. In 1920 he created a series of lithographs and engravings "Men."

Since 1918, the artist returned to teaching, taught at the State School of Printing, then in VHUTEMAS, Moscow Polygraphic Institute. Despite the politically correct plots, Gerasimov always found a creative outlet for himself, traveling to field studies that reflect the subtle poetic and harmonic nature of the artist ("Winter", "Spring Morning").

In 1937, Gerasimov was invited to teach at the MGHI. V.I. Surikov, who the artist headed during the war years. In 1948, he was dismissed from his post as director, accusing him of being too liberal. However, two years later Gerasimov returned to active pedagogical activity and until his advanced years worked at the Moscow Higher School of Industrial Art. In the 50s, the artist again turned to the pictures of nature, creating a series of "Mozhaisk landscapes."

In 1954, Gerasimov completed a series of illustrations for the Maxim Gorky novel “The Case of Artamonovs”, begun before the war, for which he received the gold medal at the World Exhibition in Brussels (1958), in the same year he became the People's Artist of the USSR. In the years of the Khrushchev thaw, Gerasimov became "visiting", he visited Italy and France. From 1958 until the end of his days, he served as First Secretary of the Union of Artists of the USSR.