Alexander Vyaznikov came to life in the town of Lubny in Poltava governorate in 1909. In 1928 he graduated from Lubny industrial and technological school and was deployed to build the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. He worked as an artist-reporter in Izvestiya Uralsoveta (Uralsoviet News). For the first few days of the Great Patriotic War, Alexander organized a political Satire Show-Case, then enlisted and was off at the front a year later. He paved the way for the Victory as a simple soldier, then a Lieutenant in the capacity of an army newspaperman, as he was drawing cartoons and posters. The poster Stab the Mad Dog! The Soviet people will beat fascists! was typical for him.
The red silhouette of the Soviet soldier wearing a red-star helmet and carrying the gun at the trail, is pointing his bayonet on to a manikin wearing a swastika-decorated napoleon tricorn and doubled up with stomach cramps. The manikin’s yelling mouth shows bare his teeth, his hairy tiny hands are covered in blood, the fisted dagger is all shook up. The soldier is looking fiercely at him and is obviously about to finish him off.
The artist approached the subject Sword of Justice in his poster All Rise for the Court! published in 1945. You will not find any courtroom or gowned lawyers there, just a dingy Т-34 battle tank carrying the Banner of the Guard on the turret and tank-mounted infantry, coming dead towards the spectators. In the foreground, tiny gray figures wearing ripped garments are spooking inside the trench.
After the Victory, Vyaznikov returned to Sverdlovsk where he contributed to various Uralian newspapers, drawing agit-prop posters and cartoons. His cartoons satirized social follies of his day thwarting postwar recovery and holding back production. The artist was an ardent opponent of pests of society, drunkards, bribetakers, slanderers. He soon became board chairman of Sverdlovsk branch of Union of Artists.
In 1964, Alexander Vyaznikov moved to Moscow to become art director in Pravda. The best-known poster of that time: We go by leaps and bounds and advance with gigantic strides. They follow our lead, all the way stubbing their toe on recession … unemployment… crisis. The top of the poster shows a wind-borne red loco, and the bottom shows the wreck of a wagon train displaying the colors of capitalist countries.
In 1968, honored artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Alexander Vyaznikov published a book titled Recollections of a War Artist-Reporter, where he narrated of his veteran’s destiny. He died in 1975 and was laid to rest in Ekaterinburg.
The red silhouette of the Soviet soldier wearing a red-star helmet and carrying the gun at the trail, is pointing his bayonet on to a manikin wearing a swastika-decorated napoleon tricorn and doubled up with stomach cramps. The manikin’s yelling mouth shows bare his teeth, his hairy tiny hands are covered in blood, the fisted dagger is all shook up. The soldier is looking fiercely at him and is obviously about to finish him off.
The artist approached the subject Sword of Justice in his poster All Rise for the Court! published in 1945. You will not find any courtroom or gowned lawyers there, just a dingy Т-34 battle tank carrying the Banner of the Guard on the turret and tank-mounted infantry, coming dead towards the spectators. In the foreground, tiny gray figures wearing ripped garments are spooking inside the trench.
After the Victory, Vyaznikov returned to Sverdlovsk where he contributed to various Uralian newspapers, drawing agit-prop posters and cartoons. His cartoons satirized social follies of his day thwarting postwar recovery and holding back production. The artist was an ardent opponent of pests of society, drunkards, bribetakers, slanderers. He soon became board chairman of Sverdlovsk branch of Union of Artists.
In 1964, Alexander Vyaznikov moved to Moscow to become art director in Pravda. The best-known poster of that time: We go by leaps and bounds and advance with gigantic strides. They follow our lead, all the way stubbing their toe on recession … unemployment… crisis. The top of the poster shows a wind-borne red loco, and the bottom shows the wreck of a wagon train displaying the colors of capitalist countries.
In 1968, honored artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Alexander Vyaznikov published a book titled Recollections of a War Artist-Reporter, where he narrated of his veteran’s destiny. He died in 1975 and was laid to rest in Ekaterinburg.
