Alexander
Ignatievich Lebedev

According to some sources, was born in 1835, educated at the Academy of fine arts (1849-1857; student P. basin). In 1857 he received the title of free artist of portrait painting in watercolor.

He began to put his cartoons since the early 1860s in "Spark", then collaborated in the "Alarm clock", "the Dragonfly" and other periodicals.

He illustrated "the Human Comedy" I. F. Vasilevsky-Letters (St. Petersburg, 1883), the award to the magazine "Fragments" 1893: "the Humor of F. M. Dostoevsky", etc. in addition, separately published his solo albums "Dead, but cute creatures" (St. Petersburg, 1862); "Cap" (St. Petersburg, 1864); "the fair sex" (St. Petersburg, 1864); "Something from Nekrasov" (St. Petersburg, 1877) and some other

Paintings Lebedev are almost unknown and of little interest. Timing is stored in a self-portrait, made, apparently, shortly after the end of the AH, and the painting "In the hospital", written in the tradition of the genre works of the Wanderers. The region in which the talent of the artist is revealed most fully - satirical graphics. As the author is still quite harmless domestic cartoons Lebedev made his debut in 1858 at the high fashion in the time magazine "Merry". Subsequently, he collaborated with many satirical magazines: "Splinter", "the Illustrated newspaper", "Bee", "Outlook", "field", "Fragments", "Dragonfly". The productivity of the artist is uncanny. The range of topics is quite wide, but not beyond domestic issues. Lebedev portrays different social strata, observing a funny and sometimes ridiculous conflicts that arise in everyday life. Such "pictures" the artist combines in thematic albums: "picnic" (1859), "all of you, my dear, good clothes" (1861), etc., In the 1860s Lebedev isdet a new series devoted to the fate of young inexperienced girls who are victims of the temptations of the big city. This includes such issues as "the Dead, but cute creatures" (1862), "a dozen dead, but lovely creatures" (1863). Followed by "Beautiful floor" and "Cap" (both 1864). In the last two albums depicted scenes are provided with captions in the form of a short dialogue composed by Lebedev and writer V. V. Krestovsky. In many cases, quotations from the works of A. S. Pushkin, V. Hugo, poet-satirist V. S. Kurochkin. Sometimes in sketches of contemporary life Lebedev rises to a topical social satire. Along with scenes of quarrels, adultery, drunken debauchery and rampant displays an image of bribery of minor officials and Civic dignitaries. arbitrary orientation of the satire was particularly marked by Lebedev in the period of cooperation with the magazine "spark" (1864-66), where in 9 rooms were placed 54 of its work. Lebedev enjoyed fame as the author of humorous portraits of celebrities - writers, artists, publishers, public figures, etc. It was friendly cartoons, such as those that mocked the seemingly incredible performance of I. K. Aivazovsky and inflated smugness M. O. Mikeshin; but was frankly satirical images, such as grotesque portraits of journalists M. N. Katkov and A. S. suvorina. The main graphical technique, in which Lebedev worked and achieved great skill, was lithography, often using colored background. As expertly he owned and pencil. Survived a lot of his drawings, as a rule, preparatory, and intended for transfer to the lithographic stone. In the technique of lithography, and made numerous illustrations of the artist. Lebedev-Illustrator turned to the works of A. S. Pushkin, M. Y. Lermontov and I. A. Krylov, N. V. Gogol, A. N. Ostrovsky, other Russian writers. The illustrations were printed separately from the text in magazines, such as "Northern lights" for 1862 and 1864. However, most often they came in the form of editions of albums. The most significant works in this area are lithographs on motives of works of N. A. Nekrasov and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Creativity Nekrasov Lebedev spoke for the first time in the mid-1860s and In 1865 appeared his "Drawings to the poems of N. Nekrasov" in two notebooks (10 lithographs each). The artist deliberately chooses a poem about the hard life of the common people ("Orina, the soldier's mother", "On the Volga", "Reflections at a main entrance", "Thief", etc.). Twelve years later, in December 1877, Lebedev again refers to "the master of thoughts" of democratic youth. He released the album "Something from Nekrasov", part of the plates which immediately falls under the ban of censorship. If the interpretation of the poetry of Nekrasov Lebedev is dominated by notes of sorrow, illustrating Saltykov-Shchedrin, the artist switches to astrometrically register. On the cover published in 1880 album "Shekinskie types" Lebedev portrayed the writer going through another man's out of the bag of the heroes of his works. Despite the fact that the artist was extremely busy, it is up to the end of his life and was not able to achieve material prosperity. On repeated requests Lebedev for help he refused. After his sudden death, many Newspapers and magazines put the obituaries. Contemporaries paid tribute to the excellent master of lithography, endowed with satirical gift and talent to interpret a literary work.