Pyotr Konchalovsky
Encyclopedia
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, a member of Jack of Diamonds
Jack of Diamonds (artists)
Jack of Diamonds , also called Knave Of Diamonds, was a group of artists founded in 1909 in Moscow. The group included Robert Falk, Aristarkh Lentulov, Ilya Mashkov, Alexander V. Kuprin, Alexander Osmerkin, Wladimir Burliuk, and Pyotr Konchalovsky. The Knave of Diamonds was a scandalous exhibition...
group.
Life and career
Pyotr Konchalovsky was born in the village of Slavianka, Kharkov gubernia (currently UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
) on 21 February 1876. His father was an art publisher. In 1889, the Konchalovskys moved to Moscow and their house became a part of the Moscow art scene of 1890s. Their house was often visited by Valentin Serov
Valentin Serov
Valentin Alexandrovich Serov was a Russian painter, and one of the premier portrait artists of his era.-Youth and education:...
, Mikhail Vrubel
Mikhail Vrubel
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel is usually regarded amongst the Russian painters of the Symbolist movement. In reality, he deliberately stood aloof from contemporary art trends, so that the origin of his unusual manner should be sought in Late Byzantine and Early Renaissance painting.-Early...
, Vasily Surikov
Vasily Surikov
Vasily Ivanovich Surikov was the foremost Russian painter of large-scale historical subjects...
. Later, Pyotr married a daughter of Vasily Surikov, who always praised the art of his son-in-law.
During his gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
years Konchalovsky attended classes of Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was one of the largest educational institutions in Russia. The school was formed by the 1865 merger of a private art college, established in Moscow in 1832, and the Palace School of Architecture, established in 1749 by Dmitry Ukhtomsky. By...
. In 1896-1898 he traveled to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
. In 1899, he returned to Russia and entered the Imperial Academy of Arts
Imperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, completed 25 years later in 1789...
in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, graduating in 1907. At the Academy, he studied under Savinsky, Zaleman and Kovalevsky.
Mir iskusstva
Mir iskusstva was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize European art during the first decade of the 20th century. From 1909, many of the miriskusniki also contributed to the Ballets Russes...
, and New Society of Artists. He was a founding member of the society Jack of Diamonds
Jack of Diamonds (artists)
Jack of Diamonds , also called Knave Of Diamonds, was a group of artists founded in 1909 in Moscow. The group included Robert Falk, Aristarkh Lentulov, Ilya Mashkov, Alexander V. Kuprin, Alexander Osmerkin, Wladimir Burliuk, and Pyotr Konchalovsky. The Knave of Diamonds was a scandalous exhibition...
in 1909. Beginning in 1918 he taught art. In 1922, he had his first solo exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery
Tretyakov Gallery
The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection,...
.
During that period, he mostly drew still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
s and landscapes. His paintings—as of all other Jacks of Diamond—were strongly influenced by Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
. Later he started to paint portraits (often Ceremonial Portraits) that were considered as the examples of Socialist Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
style.
Pyotr Konchalovsky was a very prolific painter, and is known to have created more than five thousand works.
Many of his descendants were people in the world of art. His son Mikhail Petrovich Konchalovsky (b. 1906) was a notable painter. His daughter Natalia Konchalovsky (1903–1988) was a notable children's writer and her husband Sergei Mikhalkov was a notable poet, the author of children's poetry and two versions of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union
National Anthem of the Soviet Union
The National Anthem of the Soviet Union or the State Anthem of the USSR was introduced during World War II on March 15, 1944, replacing The Internationale as the official national anthem of the Soviet Union as well as the national anthem of the Russian SFSR...
and the present National Anthem of Russia
National Anthem of Russia
The National Anthem of the Russian Federation is the name of the official national anthem of Russia. Its musical composition and lyrics were adopted from the anthem of the Soviet Union, composed by Alexander Alexandrov, and lyricists Sergey Mikhalkov and Gabriel El-Registan. The Soviet anthem was...
. They have two sons: Andrei Konchalovsky
Andrei Konchalovsky
Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky is a Soviet-American and Russian film director, film producer and screenwriter....
is a film writer, director and a painter, whose son Egor is also a notable film director. Nikita Mikhalkov
Nikita Mikhalkov
Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov is a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers' Union.Mikhalkov was born in Moscow into the distinguished, artistic Mikhalkov family. His great grandfather was the imperial governor of Yaroslavl, whose mother was a Galitzine princess...
is also a movie director who won the 1994 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for Burnt by the Sun
Burnt by the Sun
Burnt by the Sun is a 1994 film by Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov. The film depicts the story of a senior Red Army officer and his family during the Great Purge of the late 1930s in the Stalinist Soviet Union...
.