Afanasy Osipov is a Yakut painter, academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of the USSR, winner of the Ilya Repin State Prize of the RSFSR. He was born on February 28, 1928 in Gorny Ulus in Yakutia. The future Yakut painter spent his childhood and adolescence among the forests and glades, quiet taiga lakes and the Dugda, Matta, and Siine Rivers about fifty versts from the district center of Berdigestyakh and very far from the city of Yakutsk. After finishing school and technical school, Osipov went to Moscow where he entered the Moscow secondary art school at the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov, and then entered the institute itself. The artist participated in many all-union and foreign exhibitions. Years later, when he became a famous artist, he said: “I am happy that my love for the art profession began in my childhood with a love for the land and nature of my native land.”
After returning to his homeland, Afanasy Osipov taught at the Yakut art school, traveled a lot around the republic, organized exhibitions, and for many years headed the Union of Artists of Yakutia. He painted pictures of large construction sites in the republic, landscapes, as well as portraits of his countrymen, such as ordinary people and outstanding contemporaries.
Osipov painted a portrait of Sofron Danilov in 1981. Danilov is a poet, novelist, publicist, and literary critic, author of a textbook on Yakut literature. He was born in the Mytakh Nasleg of the West Kangalassky Ulus of the Yakut Region on April 19, 1922. Danilov graduated from the Yakut Pedagogical Institute, and then worked in the fields of journalism and pedagogy. Osipov has known the writer’s family since childhood. At one time, the future artist lived in the house of the Danilovs and went to the Bor School, which was located nearby. They had been friends all their lives.
In the painting, Sofron Danilov is depicted in a calm, relaxed pose. The diffused side light glides over the details of the simple interior. The artist recreates the interior of the office where the novels ‘While the Heart Beats’, ‘A Man Lives Once’, ‘The Legend of Dzhankir’, the stories ‘Manchaary’, ‘Bring Joy to People’, ‘Fire’, ‘Arable Land’, and the drama ‘On Behalf of the Yakuts’ were written.
After returning to his homeland, Afanasy Osipov taught at the Yakut art school, traveled a lot around the republic, organized exhibitions, and for many years headed the Union of Artists of Yakutia. He painted pictures of large construction sites in the republic, landscapes, as well as portraits of his countrymen, such as ordinary people and outstanding contemporaries.
Osipov painted a portrait of Sofron Danilov in 1981. Danilov is a poet, novelist, publicist, and literary critic, author of a textbook on Yakut literature. He was born in the Mytakh Nasleg of the West Kangalassky Ulus of the Yakut Region on April 19, 1922. Danilov graduated from the Yakut Pedagogical Institute, and then worked in the fields of journalism and pedagogy. Osipov has known the writer’s family since childhood. At one time, the future artist lived in the house of the Danilovs and went to the Bor School, which was located nearby. They had been friends all their lives.
In the painting, Sofron Danilov is depicted in a calm, relaxed pose. The diffused side light glides over the details of the simple interior. The artist recreates the interior of the office where the novels ‘While the Heart Beats’, ‘A Man Lives Once’, ‘The Legend of Dzhankir’, the stories ‘Manchaary’, ‘Bring Joy to People’, ‘Fire’, ‘Arable Land’, and the drama ‘On Behalf of the Yakuts’ were written.
