Igor
Ivanovich Ershov

Thesis in the CVC (workshop of V. M. Konashevich) - a series of drawings and prints to the poem of A. S. Pushkin "the bronze horseman", the rating is good. Training (1936-1947) took place in the graphical Department. Awarded the title of graphic artist.

Born on November 7, in the family of famous musicians. His father was a famous Opera singer Ivan Ershov, the mother of Sofia Akimova - singer and vocal teacher.

Many artists of the 60-70s, colleagues, Igor Ershov remembered as a man irrepressible character, often do not agree with the usual relation to art. His judgments were sometimes cutting, but always is fundamental.

I. I. Ershov graduated from the Academy of fine Arts im.And.Repin in 1947.He studied first at the painting Department in the Studio of I. Brodsky, and then moved on to the graphic Department, where his teachers were Shilingovsky, Zaitsev, I. Bilibin and Konstantin Rudakov. This constellation of the "last Maestro" unforgettable Silver age and permanently laid down their views Ershova. The thesis subsequently published in the Academic collection of the works of A. S. Pushkin were the illustrations for "the bronze Horseman". For this work he was accepted to the Artists Union.

In 1948, before artists was a difficult choice, whether to go towards the fine arts or become....Opera singer. Igor Ershov was great data, pronounced acting talent, and in combination with the big voice ( baritone) and lovely appearance, it promised a brilliant theatrical career. By the end of 1948 he sang at the Maly Opera theatre in Leningrad two seasons. Had success in the Opera "War and Peace" Prokofiev in the role of Kurakin and began acting in film-Opera "don Giovanni". But in the end thought Ershov decided that it was not his way, not his fate. And he wanted to go through the art of creation, not performance; to look for yourself in the image, painting and drawing.

In the years 1948-1954, the artist experienced the hard times of duality. It was a work on Scripture and the painting "dry brush" portraits of leaders, workers, farmers, and later moved to illustrating children's books. In those years appeared the first of his watercolors and drawings vaguely reminiscent of the future pictures (1956-1960) a Series of these works is now in the collections of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

By nature Igor Ershov had the rare gift of "exact" copying nature. He admitted that this "gift of nature" he was very disturbed then go to "experiments" in painting, the abstraction, non-objective art, where everything evolved very different problem than the copy. Until recently, naval Museum, St. Petersburg, in the permanent exhibition of this Museum was a painting by I. Yershov on the subject of the act of a soldier, carrying wounded from the battlefield commander.Subsequently how far the artist departed from the custom of painting! With the advent of the Khrushchev thaw, much has changed in the minds of people. Ershov refused to "dry brush" finally and fully immersed in training myself. He always said, "I began to study the subject anew. For me it opens up a world of new plastics, unfamiliar shape, color, pattern..." In those years, after so long a space for thinking and thirst for knowledge of the artistic intelligentsia began this spring.

Igor Ershov absorbed into going to the Hermitage. Where again open for public viewing Impressionists, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Monet and other artists. He spends hours in the Public library, where leafing through a book with reproductions of modern Western painting. The big event of those years was the publication of outstanding research Englishwoman Camilla gray. Called "Russian experiment" about the artists of the twenties in Russia. Russian Museum to I. Ershova became a regular visiting place, copy, study. For hours he sits in front of icons, considering Russian embroidery, lace, polekhovskii box. As all things seen and known strange and unusual refracted in the artist and will be reflected in new searches every night. He survives several periods and each of them will be logical to move from one plastic to another. If you build today a clear picture of Igor Ershov, you can share all of the following stages: social realism, impressionism, abstract and iconic is a fabulous symbolism. In Russia you can meet perhaps all these periods, and the West ( London and Paris) are abstract works.

Since 1958 I. Ershov returns to the book graphics, where he already speaks an entirely new way. In those years he works in close cooperation with such poets as Yevgeny rein, Henry Sapgir, the lion Mochalin, Mikhail Dudin. It was a new period when people started looking, artists and poets have the freedom of speech, in the kitchen and in the workshops argued heatedly about the meaning and purpose of art; it was a period of thaw refresh and search, which has uncovered new talents, new perspectives...All of this did not find much enthusiasm in official environment of the Union of Artists of those years. Igor Ivanovich Ershov ceased to expose immediately after he was brought to the Committee their "experimental work" – as he called them. - He could not draw "for the Cabinet" it was hard, I wanted to share with his friends at the brush. But here it was waiting for surprises. As soon as he began to draw not "right", and as "no" - it instantly fell into the category of outcasts.

Often I. Ershov worked in his small Studio-apartment to classical music. Maybe so, especially in his abstract things to see and how to hear the rhythm of the music, a kind of color-music. One can often hear from the lips of I. I. Ershova: "Art is my prison, punishment, eternal search service and his dissatisfaction with himself. Only my teacher, mentor and Savior from the dead ends have intuition, a kind of higher intuition!"

Despite the abstract period of his work, I. Yershov has never refused to work with nature. If he ( as indeed every artist) came in my search to a dead end, he immediately turned to nature. Until the end of his days he made sketches of her hand and drew a self-portrait, often pictured sitting by the window landscape, the trees, your Desk with the brushes and paint cans. A series of "Banks and brush" is widely represented in the Russian Museum. And Museum Reserve Mikhailovskoye is one of the most interesting episodes of his fantastic Icons and illustrations to Russian folklore. Ershov is always with awe and gratitude recalled his teacher Ivan Bilibin and said that he gave him the love and admiration of the Russian fairy tale.

Works of I. I. Yershov are in the collections of many museums: the State Russian Museum, the Museum of history of St. Petersburg (Peter and Paul fortress), the Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin, the Russian national library. Saltykov-Shchedrin; the State Museum of fine arts in Arkhangelsk. Abroad I. I. Ershova presented in the "Museum Carnavalet" (Paris), the Library of F. Mitterrand (Paris), in private collections of France and England.

Died I. I. Yershov 6 Feb 1985 in Leningrad after a long illness. After the death of his workshop and apartment lost all of his work, as well as items-relics relating to his father, the famous singer Ivan Yershov.

First, personal and posthumous exhibition of I. I. Ershova took place in Leningrad in 1989. For this exhibition came from Paris, his daughter Ksenia Krivosheina( Yershov), which was brought from Paris some of his works from its collection and private collections in England and France.

From 2003 to 2005 acted exhibition "Stories in print" Igor Ivanovich Yershov and Ksenia I. Krivosheina (my father), father and daughter, at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. For ten years they were soavtorstve as illustrators of children's books. In 2005 was a great exhibition of the works of Igor Ershov in the Museum of St. reserve named after A. S. Pushkin dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the death of the artist. The opening of this exhibition took place thanks to the attention and desire of Museum staff to introduce visitors to the reserve with the work of a remarkable Russian artist Igor Ivanovich Ershov. In the organization of the exhibition was attended by employees of the Russian Museum and the Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin in St. Petersburg. In 2007, the Mikhailovsky reserve has acquired in its collection a series of boards - icons Igor Ivanovich Ershov and published a book of his works.

(Biographical article provided by Ksenia Igorevna Krivosheino (Ershova))