Leningrad Postwar. Graphic work by Anatoli Kaplan
Russian National Library - January 13th 2012 - February 11th 2012
The exhibition has opened close to January 27th, the day of full relief of the blockade from the city of Leningrad, and is dedicated to the grave trials faced by the Leningrad citizens during the terrible blockade of 900 days.
Anatoly Lvovich Kaplan has graduated from the High Art-Technical Institute (VKHUTEIN) in Petrograd-Leningrad (1921-1927), under G.S.Vereisky and A.A.Rylov. He has lived in Leningrad, and often took trips to his native land in the former Pale of Settlement (Rogachev, Mogilev District), where he studied the traces of Jewish life and culture. In his compositions, mainly black-and-white lithographs, he has used the characteristic subjects of the "Yiddishe-culture".
In 1937-1940 Kaplan has worked in the LOSKh (Leningrad Department of Union of Artists) experimental lithograph workshop under G.S.Vereisky.
The series of prints on Birobidzhan (late 1930s) for the Ethnography Museum of the Peoples of USSR, and the series of prints "Kasrilovka" - an intricate weaving of memories from his hometown with literary associations - have made Kaplan famous as a master of the Jewish theme.
Among Kaplan's work on non-Jewish subjects in this period, the lyrical lithograph series "Leningrad" (1944-47) may be considered the most important, with its unexpected concept and interpretation of cityscape.
Anatoly Lvovich Kaplan belongs among the great masters of Soviet graphic art. His name is known not only in Russia, but also outside its boundaries.
Ilya Erenburg has called his works "Wonderful works of art"; Samuil Marshak has found in them "deep poetic vision of the world, bringing each drawing into philosophical generalization"; Nikolai Kuz'nim spoke of Kaplan as "an artist of high creative energy, fierce and joyful labour, whose creation, filled with human warmth, brings joy to the people and awakens in them good feelings".
Kaplan's works are brought for exhibition courtesy of the collector Isaak Kushnir. As author of the exhibition-publishing project "avant-garde on the Neva", I.Kushnir has donated 38 albums dedicated to Leningrad Avant-garde artists to the Russian National Library.
The information on this page is translated from the Russian National Library webpage (Russian).
Location and Contact Information:
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