Alexander Deineka
1899-1969
Born in Kursk into the family of a railway worker, Deineka began studies at the Kharkov Art School in 1915, subsequently fighting against the White Army in the defence of Kursk during the Civil War. After further studies at VKhUTEMAS in the Army under Favorsky, he took part in the legendary ‘Group of Three’ exhibition with Goncharov and Pimenov in 1924.
Deineka then became a founder member of OST (the Society of Stakhanovite Artists), whose work was Revolutionary in theme but painted in a Realist style unique for the times, using monumental figures, sharp and clever modelling and monochromic colours. His ‘Defence of Petrograd’ of 1928 is an early icon of the movement that morphed into Socialist Realism, a movement Deineka championed, especially after joining the ‘Russian Association of Proletarian Artists’ in 1931.
Deineka’s designs for the mosaics in the Mayakovskaya metro station (1938) are iconic, and a cut above the stylistic kitsch for which Socialist Realism later became known. Selected as one of ‘the privileged few’, Deineka designed, and visited, the mosaics for the Soviet Pavilions in Paris and New York. He also travelled to Italy.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, Deineka travelled to the front, producing a series of paintings that have gone down in Russian folklore: ‘The Outskirts of Moscow’ (1941), ‘The Defence of Sevastopol’ (1942) and his depiction of a German pilot, ‘Fallen Ace’.
In 1961, Deineka completed the mosaic for the newly-built Palace of Meetings in the Kremlin, but also became an influential teacher at the Surikov Institute in Moscow. He is buried, like many great Soviet figures, in the Novodevichy Monastery.
