Ten pictures from a new exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery exploring how 20th century Russian artists responded to the Great Patriotic War
Mai Volfovich Dantsig
Mai Volfovich Dantsig (born 1930), Partisan Ballade (1969). Oil on canvas
Born in Minsk in Belorussia in 1930, Dantsig is famous for his monumental paintings of the war with a particular emphasis Soviet Partisans. Belorussia was the hardest-hit Soviet republic during World War II, with two to three million estimated casualties in a brutal campaign that saw swathes of the population murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.
Igor Pavlovich Obrosov
Igor Pavlovich Obrosov (1930–2010), Wartime Moscow (1941)
Obrosov's Wartime Moscow 1941 is a ghostly, Modernist-influenced vision that conjures the thousands of Red Army troops who marched through Moscow's streets to the front line in the bloody battle for the Soviet capital.
Ivan Milevich Penteshin
Ivan Milevich Penteshin (born 1927), The Defence of Leningrad. Oil on canvas
Closer to a traditional notion of military art, St Petersburg painter Penteshin is renowned for his depictions of scenes from World War Two. Here he re-imagines the defence of Leningrad with a study of an anti-aircraft gun crew on the banks of the River Neva with the city in the distance. The successful defence of Leningrad was one of the turning points of the war on the Eastern Front.
Alexander Ivanovich Laktionov
Alexander Ivanovich Laktionov (1910–1972), Letter from the Front (1951). Oil on canvas
Strangely reminiscent of Norman Rockwell's vision of post-war America, Laktionov's Letter from the Front cleverly frames the Russian family during wartime in a doorway and bathes them in a summer glow.
Alexsei and Sergei Tkachev
Alexsei Tkachev (born 1925) and Sergei Tkachev (born 1922), By the Well (1951)
The brothers Tkachev often completed paintings together - as in this impressionistic narrative scene from a Russian village in which three women help bathe a Soviet soldier with water from the well.
Vera Mukhina
Vera Mukhina (1889–1953), Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. Plaster
Originally created to crown the Soviet pavilion of the World's Fair in 1937, Mukhina's famous Worker and Kolkhoz Woman became one of the defining artworks of the Soviet era and the epitome of Socialist Realism.
Evsey Evseevich Moiseenko
Evsey Evseevich Moiseenko (1916–1998), Freedom (1962)
Leningrad artist and People’s Artist of the USSR, Moiseenko’s Freedom captures the moment a Russian Prisoner of War is freed from captivity. It is estimated that out of the 5.7 million Russian soldiers taken captive during World War Two, at least 3.3 million died in Nazi custody.
Mai Volfovich Dantsig
Mai Volfovich Dantsig (born 1930), And the World Remembers the Saviour
Another painting from the Belorussian Dantsig, this allegorical painting of the Great Patriotic War puts Mother Russia centre stage.
Nikolai Andronov
Nikolai Andronov (1929–1998), Landscape with Injured Soldier (1995). Oil on board
A great Soviet-era artist, Andronov sought to express the characteristic features of national identity by exploring man’s inherent link with the countryside.
Gely Mikhailovich Korzhev
Gely Mikhailovich Korzhev (1925–2012), The Reunion. Oil on canvas (1980s)
Korzhev's The Reunion offers a later, softened version of the approved style of Soviet-era Socialist Realism painting.
- You can see The Legacy of WWII in Russian Art is at the Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York's HQ, London until April 10 2015.
What do you think? Leave a comment below. You might also like: Cotton to Gold: Extraordinary Collections of the Industrial North West illuminate Two Temple Place
Fashion on the Ration: The story of clothing on the home front during World War Two
The NPG prepares to show its biggest portrait: The Duke of Wellington's Funeral Procession
