Artist Igor Simonov worked on the painting A New District from 1971 to 1972. At the time, hard work construction led by Young Communists was unfolding in various parts of the USSR. The author captured an everyday moment at one of those construction sites on his canvas. Two girls are taking a break inside a building, and outside a dump-truck is unloading sand, three men are discussing something, and two more are working with shovels at a distance.

The composition of the picture is remindful of a movie shot. The window works like a frame in which action is unfolding. The story behind it is dynamic, with the foreground with the two girls looking quiet and static. The figures of the people are out of proportions with the surrounding objects: the workers look too big compared to the truck and the buildings in the background. This is an artistic device used by Simonov: Thus, he emphasized the significance of the people who were the main driving force, much more important for those construction projects than machinery.

For his tableau, Igor Simonov opted for a warm and sunny coloring. The people and the buildings look like they are lit by bright sunshine. For his northern landscapes, the painter preferred a different color array — cold and austere.

Igor Simonov was born in Tobolsk in 1927. He graduated from the Sverdlovsk Art School with honors; during his studies there, he worked as a milling machine operator in his time out of class. Later, Simonov moved to Leningrad where he enrolled at the I.E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

Together with his friends, painters Alexander Burak and Nikolai Kondrashin, Igor Simonov traveled across the North Urals, from Tyumen to Salekhard. The artists made their journey not only by land but also by rivers: Tobol, Tura, Ob, Irtysh. On their way, they created natural and industrial landscapes, made sketches of everyday lives of oilmen, geologists, fishermen. During that trip, Igor Simonov worked out a special style of his own — energetic and austere brushwork with contrasting color combinations, shifted grounds and unusual angles.

Simonov’s pictures were contributed to exhibitions not only in the USSR but in other countries: Brazil, Germany, Japan. Today, the artist’s works make part of holdings of Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Vladimir art museums, as all as private stocks of British, Spanish and Chinese collectors.