Boris
Petrovich Sveshnikov

Russia • 1927−1998

Biography and information

Schedule. Member of the Union of artists of the USSR.

Graduated from MVHPU (1944). Arrested (1946) until 1953 he was in custody. He created the camp a series of drawings belongs to the most significant monuments of the so-called "camp art". Later he lived and worked in Moscow, occupied a prominent place in the hood. the underground. The author of the paintings, vol. Fig.

The representative of "unofficial art", best known for his "camp Suite" (or "Gulag art"). Born in Moscow on 1 February 1927. In 1946, while studying at the Institute of applied and decorative arts, was arrested on charges of "anti-Soviet propaganda" and sent to 8 years in concentration camps (a sample of this "propaganda" of the investigation: "we have Artists draw not what they want, and what they say"). Transported to Uhtizhemlag (Komi ASSR), was first sent to the excavation. Survived only because he was transferred to camp division Vetlosyan and appointed a watchman in a woodworking shop, which was an art workshop. Here and began "camp Suite". In 1954, after serving his term, Sveshnikov returned to Moscow; in 1956 he was rehabilitated. In 1954-1957 he lived in Tarusa, then settled in the capital. Worked successfully for Goslitizdat, creating a set of illustrations to the works of Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, H. C. Andersen, brothers Grimm, M. Maeterlinck, K. G. Paustovsky, and others (the flowering of book design creativity Sveshnikov accounts for 1960-ies) – there is a clearly delineated his gift of romance-symbolist, master of fine historical stylization.