Boris Yevlentyev’s portrait of an artist and a founder of professional art education in Kurgan district Valerian Ilyushin holds a special place in the museum collection.
Ilyushin moved to Kurgan in 1945 to his son Nikolay from Samarkand evacuation.
He laid foundation to the professional education of painters in Kurgan, having managed to organize an art studio. Also he brought in a tradition to organize exhibitions of local artists.
Valerian Ilyushin studied at the Penza Art College, where Alexey Afanasyev and Konstantin Satitsky were his mentors. Later on this experience was beneficial to his Kurgan students, many of whom became professional painters. Ivan Lokhmatov, Nikolay Godin, Boris Kolbin and others studied at Ilyushin’s studio. According to his students’ memoirs, he replaced their fathers, who’d died in the battle fields. The artist really loved his students, helped them with food and warm clothes.
Boris Yevlentyev was sent to Kurgan after his graduation from the Repin Institute of Arts in Leningrad in 1970. He preferred to work in portrait genre and therefore created a whole portrait gallery of famous people of the Trans-Urals.
Yevlentyev depicted 87-year-old painter at home, sitting in the chair in front of the sketchbox easel. On the window sill are the attributes of a painter, such as brushes, paint thinner, bottles with oil. An author intentionally chose bottom-up angle in order to make the figure seem more significant. Ilyushin looks at the viewer with the weight of his life experience. Deep shadow in the upper part of his face makes it look severe and adds dramatic notes to the portrait image. The author carefully modeled a head and a hand of a maître with the light and shadow and managed to show not just likeness, but also the psychological state of his model laden with sicknesses, age, memories of the family members’ loss, but not having lost human dignity, interest to life and art.
Not being Valery Ilyushin’s student, Boris Yevlentyev was fascinated by this man’s charisma and personality. The portraitist managed to create a true pictorial monument to the genuine Russian intellectual, artist and Teacher with a capital “T”.
Ilyushin moved to Kurgan in 1945 to his son Nikolay from Samarkand evacuation.
He laid foundation to the professional education of painters in Kurgan, having managed to organize an art studio. Also he brought in a tradition to organize exhibitions of local artists.
Valerian Ilyushin studied at the Penza Art College, where Alexey Afanasyev and Konstantin Satitsky were his mentors. Later on this experience was beneficial to his Kurgan students, many of whom became professional painters. Ivan Lokhmatov, Nikolay Godin, Boris Kolbin and others studied at Ilyushin’s studio. According to his students’ memoirs, he replaced their fathers, who’d died in the battle fields. The artist really loved his students, helped them with food and warm clothes.
Boris Yevlentyev was sent to Kurgan after his graduation from the Repin Institute of Arts in Leningrad in 1970. He preferred to work in portrait genre and therefore created a whole portrait gallery of famous people of the Trans-Urals.
Yevlentyev depicted 87-year-old painter at home, sitting in the chair in front of the sketchbox easel. On the window sill are the attributes of a painter, such as brushes, paint thinner, bottles with oil. An author intentionally chose bottom-up angle in order to make the figure seem more significant. Ilyushin looks at the viewer with the weight of his life experience. Deep shadow in the upper part of his face makes it look severe and adds dramatic notes to the portrait image. The author carefully modeled a head and a hand of a maître with the light and shadow and managed to show not just likeness, but also the psychological state of his model laden with sicknesses, age, memories of the family members’ loss, but not having lost human dignity, interest to life and art.
Not being Valery Ilyushin’s student, Boris Yevlentyev was fascinated by this man’s charisma and personality. The portraitist managed to create a true pictorial monument to the genuine Russian intellectual, artist and Teacher with a capital “T”.
