Boris
Alexandrovich Takke

Painter, graphic artist. He graduated from the Moscow school of painting (1912). Lived and worked in Moscow. A participant in exhibitions from 1910. Portraits and thematic compositions "Katka" (1921), "Portrait of Leon Trotsky" (1923), "Vaska" (1928), "go Communist" (1934), monumental paintings, posters, easel graphics, etc.

To the fateful events of 1917 in Petrograd, working as a decorator of private houses, later used by the Petrograd Soviet for registration of the may day festivities. The main extant work was the painting "Katka" written on the poem by Alexander Blok "the Twelve".

on Prechistenka street, house number 13, along with other members of the 1st Labor Commune of artists worked Boris the Tacca. A member of the famous exhibition "Jack of diamonds" in 1910, almost forgotten today, he was an excellent colorist, author of bright, juicy and at the same time, composite-designed paintings and exquisite schedule, impeccably owned by dynamic lines and expressive silhouette. Powerful, distinctive gift of the artist only slightly parted for us only in recent years thanks to one of his best paintings. It's "Katka" that once belonged to the sister of Boris I. A. Tacca Zaletaeva and is now in the collection of the Russian Fund of Culture.

"Katka", at one time exhibited by Boris Tacca at the First State travelling Exhibition of paintings in 1925, many years later, in 1990, as a fabulous bird, reborn at the exhibition of gifts to the Soviet Culture Fund. The appearance of this picture produced a real furor. The image of a dashing, young woman with a cigarette clamped in his lips, literally impressed the connoisseurs of art. Especially fascinated by her eyes – that look didn't let myself.

Boris the Tacca life bowed before the Block. Yes, it is "Katka" is really Kate Blok "tolstolutsky", which has "the scars are not healed from a knife", and that defiantly looks out from the canvas toward his death. Rosy, bright, juicy, she at the same time "chained" to the framework simply calculated forms. Unlike the heroine of the Block, she's not rushing in the car on the frozen streets of Petrograd. She is depicted in the artist's Studio, behind her seen abandoned subframes. Reckless Muse terrible time, came to the master.

According to the memoirs of the Tacca and his family, the last visit of the Unit in Moscow, when the poet was already very sick, and no flowers nor fans, nor the success of his no joy, Alexander, came into a Studio, stared at the picture, and then said, "Yes, this is my Katka". The story subsequently told by the sister of Boris Tacca Irina Zaletaev. Theater artist, fashion designer, she gained fame after the release of her book... about cacti. Possibility of cultivation of exotic plants have disturbed many, and the book immediately became a bestseller. She received many letters, and in her apartment, on the Sunny side, blooming cacti. Here were kept "Katka", which Boris Tacca gave to my sister shortly after the murder of Kirov, when mass terror began.

Blame it could anything – bourgeois "formalism", participation in "knave of diamonds", that he made paintings of St. Petersburg mansions of the rich. And especially in the creation of portraits of the leaders of the revolution, Trotsky and Rykov – he wrote them on the orders of the highest Soviet institutions. But Boris as if he could foresee his future and his works are almost never signed.

There was another scene with which the Takka was not able to leave and not burned, like most of his other works, waiting for arrest. Is "Vaska" is a kind of fellow "Katka". On the canvas – a bright, rosy-cheeked character who is just a guy. Background pattern – vzaimosoedinenie balls: from top – blue balloon at the bottom – red apples. The Tacca builds the picture as an elaborate system of interconnected circles. The dominant feature of the composition – round, smiling face of a boy.

The artist hid "Vaska" in the closet, among old rolls of yellowed paper. They found him in the mid-forties Marietta p. the Of wife, stepson B. A. Tacca Andrew.

M. P. Of was one of the originators of the technical "revolution" on national television, developing a methodology of multi-camera filming. Life had made her family Tacca Boris Alexandrovich and his wife Maria Alexandrovna Of. The father of Maria Alexandrovna, Alexander von Erlenwein worked in Yasnaya Polyana teacher, along with Tolstoy he participated in the creation of the magazine "penny". With her first husband, the Director of Maikop plant, Maria, escaping imminent arrest, fled in 1924 in Moscow, where she met the Tacca. Today Marietta Pavlovna, her daughter-in-law, became the main legacy of the artist and, of course, the best connoisseur of his work.

"Boris Alexandrovich was a man of remarkably composed, amazing dignity. He never showed his feelings, but the nobility was literally in his every gesture. And all the house breathed in some bygone and a very decent time. Remember: three potatoes, but the table is always served very nicely. And there was no arrogance. It's just that these people lived differently," recalls Marietta Pavlovna. She dismantled his entire archive, traced the fate of the paintings, most of which disappeared in the depths of the "almost epic" found a number of posters, labels and more, what had to do the Tacca for all his outwardly calm enough, but such a dramatic life. She manually created the big book – album "Mysterious Tacca", glued the layout. Large sheets of illustrations (nearly all reproduced for the first time), concise, accurate text. No wonder Marietta p. worked so hard in the movie. Soon this book is about Boris Tacca will be published by "Copyright". Marietta p. recalls family stories. As, for example, after the news about the murder of Kirov Boris said to his wife: "Well, Manya, now begins", and went to burn the letters and drawings.

So who was he, Boris A. the Tacca, who with such force to put on canvas the idea of the great poet of Russia? Person from whom not even the grave – it crumbled at the German cemetery in Moscow. The artist never fully realize their talent. Remains be thankful at least that he survived and disappeared in the Stalinist furnaces.

Boris the Tacca was born 25 November 1889, in the family of a merchant of the second Guild Alexander Kasparovich the Tacca. Childhood in the estate of Rostov-on-don, close to the textile factories that belonged to his father. Then it was the 1st Moscow real school, then the famous Moscow school of painting, sculpture and architecture where his teachers included Leonid Pasternak, A. Arkhipov, K. Korovin. The artist noticed immediately. His work was not youthful, serious and cautious. In the period of apprenticeship, in 1906, he deserved the rave reviews the press after the appearance of his paintings at the 26th exhibition of the Moscow society of art lovers. But the finest hour of the young master, by the time another student arrived in December, 1910, when in Moscow, on Bolshaya Dmitrovka opened the exhibition, divided the history of Russian art into "before" and "after," "Jack of diamonds".

Among the constellation of names such as Pyotr Konchalovsky, Robert Falk, N. With. Goncharova, Boris Alexandrovich the Tacca is not only not lost, but rather was seen. Maximilian Voloshin in a large article, published in the Annex to the "Apollo", wrote: "we Must do justice to the organizers of the exhibition: they did everything to bring the fury of the eye of the visitor. In the first room they put the barbed and geometrically-angular composition, the Tacca and Falk". Further Voloshin called the Tacca "...enamored with Picasso."

In June 1911goda when nothing presaged the First world war, the Tacca visited Europe. It is a lot of drawing, sketched in a notebook. Father by that time was no longer alive, the money is not enough, but mother decided that necessary for the artist to see Italy. Sketches of the young master, rescued them from a European voyage, amazing craftsmanship, fine plasticity, elastic, powerful line. After graduation, the Tacca has worked extensively in the field of book graphics. But these are not the appropriate times for the "pure art". Together with his friend Vladimir Konashevich Boris the Tacca sent to Petrograd, where artists painted private mansions.

The birth of a new era occurred in February of 1917, Boris Alexandrovich met in Petrograd, a city Block – the Northern capital, whose stately form is largely determined by his work. Art spills out onto the streets, the wind seeming newfound freedom captures thousands of people. The Tacca is involved with Petrograd Soviet for registration of the may day festivities. The field of Mars was decorated with huge posters, the Winter Palace draped a white cloth with red edges; at the Alexandrinsky in the entire facade – jubilant inscription "May!", "Freedom". And, it seemed, would be so good...

The artist went to Moscow, going through hungry frigid winter. Involved in the design of Zubovskaya square, portraits of leaders. Organize with friends the 1st Creative commune of artists. They settled together in a small house on a Dead alley, have a common household, struggling with hunger and cold. Paint the campaign train: "imeni Lenina", "named after the October revolution", "Red Caucasus". In 1920, the Tacca sketch painting club in the Kremlin, but this work was not done in 1923 at the exhibition timed to the fifth anniversary of the red Army, is the portrait of the Chairman of the revolutionary military Council of Leon Trotsky. By the way, the portrait of the hero set and the other master, however, completed, in contrast to the Tacca, life on other shores, Yuri Annenkov. The first enthusiasm passed quickly. Boris the Tacca early enough understood under what authority you have to live. In the archive of the artist preserved the letter of V. M. Konashevich, who lost it in a whirlwind of civil war. Faithful friend of his youth wrote in June 1923: "my Dear Boris! Finally I found out about you. I wrote to you (for a long time – two years ago) at the old address, but received no response. Thought you and all your have gone abroad".

Indeed, Boris Aleksandrovich, and his art have little in common with the new Russia. His main objective was to survive.

But that would be the Takka did, he remained an artist. Even in the posters, which reproduce images of the workers of victorious socialism. Unlike many other similar works of the time, the Takka – in the portraits of Kalinin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Stalin – you can always find his unique style. General approval was caused by the large canvases of "go Communist", "attack", included in the exhibition "20 years of the red army". Interestingly, the faces of the characters Tacca often had a portrait likeness of the artist himself.

Boris Alexandrovich taught at the Communist University of the Sverdlov, worked in the Central Office of the Moscow Union of artists. Life to him warm friends and of course, Maria Alexandrovna, with whom he linked his life after the death of her first husband.

The takka died in 1951, and not waiting for any new times or grandson (the son Of Andrew and Marietta Pavlovna, to preserve the legacy of B. A. Tacca, was born after the death of the artist). Perhaps Boris Tacca was lucky in that she underestimated him, did not represent the true scale of the artist. Otherwise he likely would have vanished, like millions of his contemporaries.

(From the article O. V. Leonidova Zemlyakova and "Prosuvannya genius", the Magazine "Russian art", 2004 No. 2)