Arkady Plastov Paintings

(b Prislonikha, Ul’yanovsk region, 30 Jan 1893; d Prislonikha, 12 May 1972). Russian painter. He was from a peasant family, and he studied in Moscow, at the Stroganov School (1912–14) and also at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1914–17). The late Impressionist painting of members of the Union of Russian Artists, in particular Abram Arkhipov and Konstantin Korovin, as well as the lyrical, rich colourism of Sergey Gerasimov, had the greatest effect on Plastov. At first he worked mainly in posters and book illustration. He continued to produce book illustrations (e.g. to Lev Tolstoy’s story Kholstomer , ‘The canvas measurer’, watercolour and gouache, 1952–4; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.), but he achieved success mostly as a painter. His first significant painting is the Collective Farm Holiday (1937; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.), executed in the official Socialist Realist style of the 1930s. Yet the spirited, strikingly emotional style of painting and the liveliness of the national types compensate to a considerable extent for its propagandist content.