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Robert Rafailovich
Falk

Russia • 1886−1958

Biography and information

Painter, graphic artist, theatre. an artist. In 1903-04, he studied in the studios of art society ' and Igudina, then I.Mashkov in Moscow, in 1905-12 in Mugusa in V. Serov, K. Korovin. From 1906 participant of exhibitions. In 1910-17 one of the founders and a member of the society "Jack of diamonds", member about the deposits of "World of art" (from 1911), OMH (1927-32), AHRR (1925-28). In 1918-28 taught in Moscow. Vhutemase-Vhuteine. From 1929 he lived in Paris, he returned to Moscow in 1938. Landscapes and still lifes ("Crimea. Pyramidal poplar", 1915; "Autumn morning in Moscow", 1926; "in Balaklava Bay", 1927; "Alupka", 1930; "Pine", 1938; "Moscow landscape 1950; "Potato", 1956), portraits (Portrait Midkhat Repacova", 1915; "Woman in red", 1918; "Portrait in yellow", 1924; "the Woman in blue", 1935; "Portrait of Solomon Mikhoels", 1947; "self-Portrait in red FEZ", 1957)the design of the theatre. performances and other works.

R. R. Falk started his career as an artist in noisy group of young restorers of the painting, in Association "Jack of diamonds", where he was the youngest. He studied at private Studio of K. F. Yuon and I. I. Mashkov (my future companion society), then at the Moscow K. A. Korovin and C. A. Serov (1905-10).

 

Like other "jacks", Falk sought expressive of volume forms, wrote angular spots saturated color. "During this period I loved the bright, contrasting combinations, generalized expressive contours, even emphasized their dark paint", he wrote later.

 

The main thing in his laconic, deprived of any beautiful landscapes and stingy, composed of the easiest things still lifes 1910s - physical, tangible full houses or tree crowns, bottles or clay jugs. Like his colleagues, he uses some techniques "wavesecure" primitive, weight, sealing volume. Trying to generalize the shape and sculpt the mass of color, it absorbs relevant to time painting lessons P. Cezanne (sharp-tongued critic A. M. Efros called Falk man "Cezanne nationality").

 

Pumping internal pressure of work, he is not afraid to make it quite sharp deformation, seeks, in his words, "shifts form to emphasize the emotional expressiveness". Such, for example, acute nervous portrait of Malhada Repacova (1915), "Negro" (1917), and other

 

From britiush cheerfulness canvases most of his comrades in the company's early works Falk distinguishes certain greyness, the hidden drama, not captured in the reports, but only in the most picturesque structure of his works. Especially characteristic Red furniture" (1920), stress-predatory and angular, with its heavy, but aggressive intense color.

 

Gradually, during the 1920s, painting Falk becomes more and more subtle. Disappear cubist shifts and emotional tension in the portrait can now be transferred without them. Demonstrative "vivisect" early stuff too is no longer needed. The surface of the canvas gently vibrates complex, as if moving color. Falk looking for in a holistic picture, rich color and light environment around people and objects.

 

A few portraits of 1923-24, ("Woman in a white dressing, two self-portraits and other), the artist has achieved a feeling of deep concentration, silence lasting (and not stopped, as often happens in painting) time. Dim side light generalized and rounded sculpts the shape of faces and figures of people is immersed in Saba, significant in his secret inner life.

 

During these years, Falk makes two performances in Moscow in GOSET - "Night at the old market" (1925) and "the Journey of Benjamin III" (1927) Mendel, moyher-sforima, grotesquely pushing real miserable life with bright fantasy. In 1928 Falk, Dean of the art Department of the Institute, received a business trip to France - "to study classical heritage". There he stayed for a long time in a decade.

 

In Paris his canvases continue to develop those qualities that clearly showed in Moscow: isolation, seclusion, samosopryazhennosti, richness and subtlety of colour. Numerous landscapes of Paris melting in pearl haze soft Golden-olive tones. The artist is more interested in the city air than his houses and bridges, streets and green water of the Seine. The integrity of color and light and air dissolves details, painting sounds more music than a story. Intimacy, soft lyrics are permeated and portrait work, especially women, is a little bit deliberately extended smoothly contoured shape: "Portrait of L. M. Ehrenburg" (1933-34), "the Patient" (1935), "Parisian" (1936).

 

After returning to Moscow by the beginning of 1938, Falk has got not in the artistic atmosphere that we have left. Without it passed the campaign against what became known as "formalism", offends many kindred artists. Formed in such pressure from the Soviet art of the late 1930s refined painting Falk bad fit. The war years the artist spent in Central Asia, nature and architecture which gave in his creative work the new bright flash rich and complex brilliance ("Golden wasteland. Samarkand", "Registan", "house. Samarkand, all 1943). In the postwar years, in fact rejected by the official art, he continues to work in his attic in the center of Moscow, writes strict focused portraits S. M. Mikhoels(1947-48), V. B. Shklovsky (1948), A. Nekrasova (1950), A. G. of g.n.gabrichevsky (1951 and 1952-53).

 

His later still-lives - with Negro sculpture (1944), "the Pigeon and the rose" (1952), "the Potato" (1955), is almost empty, with few immersed in a dark space objects, cause stress to look into the dusk, to listen to him, as in a quiet and clean musical theme. In these years the name Falk, deprived of opportunities to participate in exhibitions, practically unknown to the audience, surrounded by a kind of legend secretly create high and pure painting.