Born 1941, Leningrad - Died 2003, Kfar Saba, Israel
Painter, graphic artist, book illustrator
Biography Watercolors Oils Illustrations Acknowlegements
Below is Tatiana's biography, as she wrote it 3 years before she died.
Biography:
My name is Tatiana Kofyan. I have decided to start this site on a subject of great interest to me: the Russian Art in the first half of the 20-th century.
While I find the artists, their works, scan and process the pictures (yes, I have gone so far with the technology as to actually use complicated graphical computer programs), and write the basic texts, my daughter, Vera, has made this dream come true, putting together all the mystical computer side of the site, namely the design and structure, the navigation and all these other incomprehensible words. She also helps make the small biography texts readable in English, and helps translate other texts.
I have had the good fortune to come across the Russian Avant-Garde for the first time over 40 years ago, in 1959. A group of students of the Institute of Art, and I among them, was allowed into the storage cellars of the Russian museum in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Paintings by artists totally unfamiliar to us were hanging close together all over the stands - Chagall, Petrov-Vodkin, Filonov and many others. This collection was astonishing in its dissimilarity to everything in the upstairs exposition. Later I have met some of the old artists, who have been working in the far 20s and 30s, and even with some of Malevich's pupils, faithful to their grand instructor's teachings.
I was born in 1941 in Leningrad, studied at the Institute of Art and later graduated from the Academy of Arts in 1969 in that same city. I work in the style of romantic realism, paint in oil and watercolor. I also use various graphic techniques such as etching, linocut and others, illustrate books for both children and adults, make precise drawings for archaeologists, zoologists and botanists. I also do various other things that most any artist is obliged to do these days - hand-drawn postcards, computer graphics and design.
My family and I immigrated to Israel in 1979, and we live in Kfar Sava with my husband Michael, and my son Jonathan. My eldest daughter Vera and her son Oded now live in a northern village close to the Lebanese border. We keep a white cat (though he is certain it's he who keeps us), who was unfortunately born deaf, so his name is immaterial.
I invite you to view some of my own work (and will add family pictures at a later time), to allow you to get to know me a little better.
Biography Watercolors Oils Illustrations Acknowlegements Top of Page
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank our very good friend Natalya Neiman for all her help with the translation of the longer texts on the various movements, which she did unselfishly, though it held little interest for her. She also never forgets to look for books on the subject, wherever she chances to be in a bookstore.
My heartfelt thanks to all the friends - old and new - whom I have bored for hours on end with the tales of my progress with this site. Thanks to those who have searched their hidden treasures or junk storages and found various books, albums and postcards with surprising rare works of half-forgotten artists for me to present here.
Among these I would like to especially thank is my very good friend Lev Krichevsky, who is continuously unearthing rare and precious books and bringing them for me to use on this site.
Thanks go to Anna Levinson, a friend timely acquired, when I was just beginning this site, and a fellow site-owner, for her lessons, advice and her assistance in the first stages of building this site.
Special thanks to Olga Mataeva, for her assistance from the very beginning, when even the very idea of Internet for me was vague at best.
And, finally, to my family. Thanks to my husband, Dr. Michael Rosenzweig, for putting up with the interminable hours I spent at the computer (which this particular user doesn't find overly friendly). To my brother, Alexandr Kofyan (in Moscow), for searching for those rare (and heavy) books at a smallest hint from me and sending them to me despite all the difficulties. To my daughter, Vera, for all the work she constantly puts in designing, proofing, publishing and maintaining this site. She had to learn how to be a webmaster on-the-go, a new direction for her. So many nights she has spent on my site, after putting her energetic baby (now toddler) to sleep. And, last, but by no means least, to my son, Jonathan for the great sacrifice he made of his room and computer, which we usurped days and nights for several months (so he had to sleep in another room).
Tatiana Kofyan
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Some more acknowledgements from Vera Kofyan:
I would like to add a few acknowledgements that are all mine, and refer to the period after my mother's demise.
Thanks to David and to Dana for finding me and not giving up on me, for their support, together and individually, and for making my mother's dream come true.
Thanks to all the friends of my mother, who have offered to help with this site. I will certainly need your help at some point.
To Josephina, who has been answering mail from our visitors with their questions for a while.
To Leonid Yuniverg and to Itella Mastelbaum, who held an evening in my mother's memory in the Russian Library in Jerusalem, and advertised our site to their club members.
To Victor Licht for his very kind article in the Israeli newspaper Vesti, where he reviewed our website (very favorably, too) to all Russian readers.
And most of all - to the visitors, for your support and enthusiasm, your questions and your interest. And above all - for the continuous visits to our site. It would have meant a great deal to my mother. This is the work of her life, the realization of her dream, and your vote of confidence is reassuring me in my decision to maintain and continue her work.
Vera Kofyan