Gleb Savinov

Gleb Alexandrovich Savinov (Гле́б Алекса́ндрович Сави́нов; September 27, 1915, Natalievka, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire – November 5, 2000, Saint Petersburg, Russia) was a Soviet, Russian painter and Art teacher, Honored Artist of Russian Federation, who lived and worked in Leningrad and regarded as one of the leading representatives of the Leningrad school of painting, most famous for his genre and portrait painting.

Biography
Gleb Alexandrovich Savinov was born September 27, 1915 in Natalievka village, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine). Children and youth Gleb Savinov were on the Volga River at Saratov. His father, Alexander Ivanovich Savinov (1881–1942), a talented painter, draftsman and teacher, was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. Friendship bound him to the well-known artists from the Saratov School - Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Alexander Matveev, Piotr Utkin, Pavel Kuznetsov. They often gathered in the Savinov house in Saratov. Their judgments about art, the creativity of his father, his extraordinary personality had a strong impact on the formation of the young artist.

In 1922 the family of Savinov finally moved from Saratov in Petrograd. In 1928-1930 Savinov started working in the studio of his father while still attending school. In 1934, after graduating from high school he enrolled at the painting department of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he studied with Pavel Naumov, Michael Bernstein, Nicholai Radlov, Genrikh Pavlovsky, Semion Abugov, and Alexander Osmerkin. In 1940 Gleb Savinov graduated from Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Alexander Osmerkin workshop. His graduation work - painting named "Childhood Gorky" - was awarded first prize in 1940 in Moscow at the All-Union Exhibition of graduation works of Art Institutes and Colleges. In the same year Gleb Savinov married his classmate and talented artist Olga Bogaevskaya. This happy family and a creative union lasted sixty years.

Since 1940 Gleb Savinov participated in Art Exhibitions. He painted portraits, historical and genre paintings, landscapes, genre scenes, still lifes, interiors. In August 1940 Savinov was called to serve in the Navy fleet. After the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Savinov served in parts of the Baltic Fleet, including the defense of Leningrad. Command drew attention to his artistic training. Savinov nominated artist Baltic crew. He was appointed manufacturer of patriotic and anti-fascist panels and posters. He draws a distinction in battle soldiers, wounded in the hospitals, also participates in the preparation of exhibitions of artists of the Red Army devoted to the fighting troops of the Leningrad Front and the Baltic Fleet. In 1944, Savinov was admitted to the Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists. After the Great Patriotic War, Savinov included in the creative and educational activities that will combine almost to the end of life. In 1945-1947 he taught in Ilya Repin Institute of Arts, then in 1949-1979 in the Vera Mukhina Institute, where since 1969 he was Professor of Painting.

In 1957 on the All-Union Art Exhibition in Moscow, devoted to the 40th Anniversary of the October Revolution, Savinov first showed two large narrative paintings: "The University Embankment", and "At the street" (both 1957). They have played a great role in changing of his artistic creation. In these works he appeared as a mature artist, a talented colorist and composer who knows how everyday street scene to lift up to the level of highly generalized image of civil sound. The artist has made great achievements in painting, clean, brighten, and enriched his palette. The color scheme of works was built on the harmony of light, bright colors. In both pictures Savinov demonstrated ability in a small space of the canvas clearly convey the feeling of the era, with its household characteristics, originality of types, relationships between people.



Since that time Savinov gained fame and recognition as a master of genre painting. Among his the most famous paintings are "About Russian women" (1960), "Country Store", "Moto Racing in Yukki" (both 1961), "Sailors. Year of 1942", "Mothers" (both 1964), "Barricade in Presnya" (1967), "Povolzhskaya Commune" (1969), "Victory Day" (1975), "A First tractor", "On the Volga River during the Civil War" (both 1980), "Tractor on the Volga" (1985).

In parallel with work on genre scenes, often occupying years, Savinov painted home interiors, portraits, landscapes, and "everyday" still lifes. Among them "Staraya Ladoga", "Leningrad landscape" (both 1959), "Studio of Artist Igor Veselkin", "City outskirts" (both 1962), "Interior Workshop" (1971), "Veranda" (1972), "Branchs", "Portrait of Larisa Romanova" (both 1975), "Roses" (1976), "A Window", "Landscape of Leningrad" (both 1977), "A Spring in the City" (1980), "Nevsky Prospekt" (1984).

In 1973 Gleb Savinov was awarded the honorary title of the Honored Artist of the RSFSR. His solo exhibitions were in 1991 in Leningrad, and in 2005 in Saint Petersburg and Torino, Italy.

Gleb Alexandrovich Savinov died on November 5, 2000, in Saint Petersburg at the eighty-sixth year of life. His paintings reside in State Russian Museum, in Art museums and private collections in Russia, France, the USA, Japan, Germany, England, Italy, and throughout the world.