Most likely, the portrait has almost never been exhibited until now, as evidenced by its perfect condition without restoration.
The portrait was painted by Veniamin Nikolayevich Popov, who is considered to be the creator of Karelian easel painting. In the 1930s and 1940s he was one of its most famous representatives. From 1936 to 1941, Veniamin Popov taught drawing and painting in an art studio located in the Central House of Culture in Petrozavodsk. The artist’s works were exhibited at the All-Russian Exhibition (1929), the All-Union Exhibition (1946), the exhibition of Leningrad artists in Moscow (1935, 1941), the exhibition of Karelian artists in Leningrad (1937) and Moscow (1951), at personal exhibitions (1920, 1928, 1938).
During the occupation of the Karelo-Finnish SSR by Finnish troops, many of Popov’s works have been permanently lost.
By the mid-1930s, discord in artistic circles, freedom of association and opinion were eliminated, and Socialist Realism became the only artistic style. Culture, in the words of Joseph Stalin, was to become “national in form and socialist in content”. “Portrait of Joseph Stalin” was painted in the Socialist Realism style by Veniamin Popov — a popular artist in Karelia and a student of Ilya Repin.
In 1911, Popov came to Karelia for the first time, and since then the artist’s work was inseparable from the region. His contemporaries saw his ability to poeticize everyday life in his work as his major strength. Popov was the oldest and most respected artist in Karelia, the only artist out of 18 members of the Union of Karelian Artists with a higher education. Residents of Leningrad and guests of the city were the first to see this portrait in the spring of 1937, when Karelian artists took part in the Decade of Karelian Art in Leningrad. As part of the Decade, an exhibition of Karelian artists was opened in the House of Culture of the Industrial Cooperation, where 30 works were exhibited.
In the portrait, Joseph Stalin is depicted during a speech, he is dressed in a gray jacket and a white shirt. Behind Stalin’s back on the left is a wooden shelf with a bust of Lenin. The upper part of the painting above Stalin’s head is a drape of burgundy fabric. A sheet of paper is on the table in front of Stalin, he holds it with his right hand.
