The works of Lidija Timoshenko are widely known to the specialists studying the Russian art of both pre- and post-WWII art. However, in Moscow her last personal exhibition took place in 1981, that is, about quarter of a century ago. Since then the art of the 1930s (the brightest period of her artistic biography) underwent radical reevaluation. Today we witness a real Renaissance, explosion of interest to the masters of «the epoque of the first five-year plans», the epoque of unbelievable freedom of creativity in the conditions of the onslaught of authoritarianism. Born in St. Petersburg to a family of aristocratic traditions, having absorbed the utmost painting and drawing culture of the «Northern Palmyra», in the 1920th Timoshenko found herself in the very middle of avant-garde aspirations. Studies in the State Institute for Artistic Culture under the supervision of Pavel Mansurov — according to her, the most important mentor in her artistic life, — determined her subsequent evolution. In 1928 she joined the «Krug» («Circle of Artists») society — one of the most radical and avant-garde communities that involved Aleksej Pakhomov, Vjacheslav Pakulin, Aleksandr Rusakov, Tat'jana Kupervasser, Aleksandr Samokhvalov, David Zagoskin (to whom Timoshenko was married at that time). During 1929–1932, in joint trips to the Mogilev and Vitebsk provinces together with Zagoskin, she produced a series of mixed-technique life drawings that still remains among the most daring and important experiments in the history of the Russian culture of the 20th century. Most sheets from this series are being displayed in this exhibition, while the rest are kept in the Russian Museum, State Pushkin museum, Tretyakov Gallery, and other Russian museums. After all artists' groups and associations were dissolved in 1932, Timoshenko managed to preserve her ingenuous perception and unique personality by finding a colorful aesthetic equivalent of the time of building up «a socialist paradise». It was found in her well-known «children's series» that includes dozens of canvases depicting children: adolescents swimming on a beach, dancing in a meadow, gathering apples, playing sports, and launching gliders. Culmination of the children's theme is represented by the «Katjusha» lithography of 1940 that made Timoshenko famous in the USSR and far beyond.
After the war Timoshenko settled in Moscow with her husband Eugenij Kibrik. Severe disease prevented her from performing at her full potential, but nevertheless she did a grandiose work of illustrating «Eugene Onegin» by Pushkin in both painting and drawing technique which took about twenty years. In the 1960s she won a non-public reputation of an extra refined portraitist — a series of her portraits, laconically expressive and emancipated in color, became emblematic for the Moscow intelligentsia of the late 1960s. The exhibition of Timoshenko will give a chance to the public to see a lot of unknown works, carefully preserved in the artist's family. An illustrated catalogue of Timoshenko's works never reproduced before is being printed for the exhibition.
The exhibition is open from 11-00 to 19-00 on weekdays and from 12-00 to 20-00 on weekends, closed on Mondays. Admission is
free.
Directions to the Art-Divage gallery: Metro station Kitay-gorod, Polytechnical Museum, entrance 2, 3/4 Novaya ploshchad.
Phone:
+7 (095) 928-58-70, 928-03-41, mobile 762-64-25.
e-mail: Ildar@united-europe.ru