Painting of the XX century, Room 1

The first gallery presents the works of artists whose artistic activities took place in the first half of the 20th century and whose depth of thought and flight of imagination could not be hindered by censorship restrictions or narrow ideological frameworks.

The works of the outstanding self-taught artist of the 1930s, Roman Semashkevich, are characterized by a synthesis of fauvism and expressionism, bold and unexpected color solutions, naive perception, and expressiveness. Despite a tragic fate and a short artistic career of only 7 years, the painter managed to capture the interest and attention of art critics and connoisseurs of French art, such as Serge Romoff, who shared Semashkevich's fascination with French painting. In his works, the artist attempted to awaken in the viewer a sense of participation, at times crudely and heavily, but with the ability to see life in its unconditional truth.

The representative of the Leningrad School of Painting, caricaturist, illustrator, theater artist, and creator of propaganda posters, Vladimir Lebedev, stands out. His works are characterized by stylized realism in the spirit of French Impressionism, with a poster-like reflection. In his illustrations, the artist often leaves empty space and fills it with chaotically characteristic individual figures. The color scheme is restrained, without the use of halftones, with simple and open colors: red, blue, green, and yellow. In his paintings, Lebedev pays great attention to the portrait genre. Fr om 1934 onwards, a whole series of female images began. The artist experiments with the creative interpretation and emotional portrayal of contemporary women. These works subtly trace the conceptual line of organic integrity and pictorial harmony. The author sought to show his contemporaries as worthy of admiration and fascination for the viewer. In addition to his artistic activities, in the 1920s-1930s, Lebedev opened his own school of visual arts, wh ere such giants as Alexey Pakhomov, Yuri Vasnetsov, Yevgeny Charushin, and many others began their journey.

At the end of his artistic explorations, the artist loved to say, "To understand my art, one needs to know and remember that I am an artist of the 1920s. I say this not only because my best works belong to that era. What is even more essential is that the spiritual atmosphere of that time shaped me. The roots of all my ideas and intentions go back to that period. I strived to carry the spirit of the 1920s through my entire life."

Equally interesting is the artistic journey of Vyacheslav Pakulin, a representative of the Leningrad School of Painting. His works from the 1920s to the 1940s are full of radicalism, fresco-like quality, and maximum generalization combined with colorful diversity and titanism. The geometry of forms refers to Picasso's cubist experiments and Malevich's figurative style. Since 1927, he has been heading the artistic association "Circle of Artists," which opposed the reflection of the country's main events. In the 1940s, the artist devoted a whole series of plein-air landscapes of the streets of Leningrad, reflecting the tragic beauty of the besieged city. However, in the post-war period, Pakulin's works faced criticism from official art circles. He was accused of being fond of formalism and his innovative experiments, which did not correspond to the ideology of Soviet painting.

The entire artistic legacy of the artist can be placed on par with the works of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Kazimir Malevich. It is filled with emotions and experiences, characterized by analytical impressionism that manifests in a holistic image.

It is worth noting that the period of the 1920s-1930s was characterized by a complete prohibition of non-realistic movements, and many artists abandoned their avant-garde quests. All artistic associations were definitively closed. According to the regulations of a special decree by the state, the "Union of Artists of the USSR" was formed. It is this time that is considered the beginning of the development of social realism in Soviet painting. Nevertheless, parallel to this, there existed another culture that gave impetus to the development of the underground movement in the 1960s-1980s.