Mai Volfovich Dantsig is a Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

ian artist active during the Soviet era and independence of Belarus. He is considered to be one of the founders of the contemporary Belarusian art.

Dantzig graduated from Minsk Art School in 1952. From 1952 to 1958 Mai studied in the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, under Mikhail Kurilko and Victor Tsyplakov

Victor Tsyplakov

Victor Tsyplakov is a retired ice hockey player who played in the Soviet Hockey League. He played for HC Lokomotiv Moscow. He was inducted into the Russian and Soviet Hockey Hall of Fame in 1969.-External links:*...

. From 1958 he has been teaching at the Belarusian Academy of Arts. From 2001 he has been the chairman of the Department of Painting there. In 1995 he became a People's Artist

People's Artist

People's Artist is a honorary title in the Soviet Union, Union republics, in some other Eastern bloc states , as well as in a number of post-Soviet states, modeled after the title of the People's Artist of the USSR....

 of Belarus. In 2005 he was awarded the Order of Francysk Skaryna.

Mai often paints in large formats, which, in addition to his expressive style, helps transform his chosen themes from quotidian to important, and imbues his pictures with a monumental character. His works often take on symbolic or metaphorical significance.
He was the author of many paintings and drawings related to the German-Soviet War and Soviet partisans

Soviet partisans

The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....

s including the And Saved World remembers. He is also famous for his series of portraits of Soviet Intelligentsia

Intelligentsia

The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...

 including Bulat Okudzhava

Bulat Okudzhava

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He was one of the founders of the Russian genre called "author song"...

, Georgy Tovstonogov

Georgy Tovstonogov

Georgy Alexandrovich Tovstonogov was a Russian theatre director, the leader of Saint Petersburg Bolshoi Academic Theatre of Drama , which now bears his name.-Biography:...

, Ales Adamovich

Ales Adamovich

Ales Adamovich was a Soviet writer and a critic, Professor and Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Doctor of Philosophy in philology, Doctorate in 1962 ; the people's deputy...

, Vasil Bykaŭ.

External links

• Biography
• Interview with Mai Dantsig in the newspaper Vecherny Minsk May 10, 2005
• 70 years of Dantsig
• Dantsig in Chagal museum