Aleksandr Gerasimov (painter)

For other people with the same name, see Aleksandr Gerasimov.

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Gerasimov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Гера́симов; 12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1881 – 23 July 1963) was a Soviet and Russian painter. He was a leading proponent of socialist realism in the visual arts, and painted Joseph Stalin and other Soviet leaders.

Aleksandr Gerasimov
Born	(1881-08-12)12 August 1881 Kozlov (now Michurinsk) in Tambov, Russian Empire
Died	23 July 1963(1963-07-23) (aged 81) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian, Soviet
Alma mater	Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
Movement	Socialist realism

Biography

Gerasimov was born on 12 August 1881 in Kozlov (now Michurinsk) in Tambov Governorate, Russian Empire. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1903 to 1915. There he championed traditional realistic representational art against the avant-garde.

He served in the army during World War I and the Russian Civil War. Subsequently, he returned to his hometown to become a stage designer, helping to present plays glorifying the Revolution and the Soviet government.

In 1925, Gerasimov returned to Moscow and set up a studio, combining techniques of academic realism with an Impressionistic light touch. He favored a style known as heroic realism, which featured images of revolutionary leaders such as Vladimir Lenin as larger-than-life heroes. As Stalin tightened his grip on the country, Gerasimov concentrated on official portraits, such as Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin, for which he won a Stalin Prize in 1941. He produced a large number of heroic portraits of Kliment Voroshilov, to the point that Nikita Khrushchev would later accuse Voroshilov of having spent most of his time in Gerasimov's studio, to the detriment of his responsibilities as People's Commissar of Defense.

Gerasimov's leadership of the Union of Artists of the USSR (replacing his nemesis and ironic namesake Sergey Vasilyevich Gerasimov) and the Soviet Academy of Arts was criticized as heavy-handed. He was at the forefront of the attacks against cosmopolitanism and formalism during the Zhdanovshchina.

Soviet commemorative stamp of Aleksandr Gerasimov on occasion of his 100th birthday

Although his flattering portraits of Soviet leaders and his political activities against artists who would not toe his line have gained him a reputation as a political hack, Gerasimov remained a genuine artist. Even at the end of his career, he continued to follow a moody, almost Impressionistic treatment of landscapes, at odds with the conventional nature of his official portraiture.

Selected paintings

• 
  Nadezhda Gilyarovskaya by A. M. Gerasimov, 1912
• 
  V. M. Lobanov by A. M. Gerasimov, 1913

External links

• Public artist USSR A.M.GERASIMOV
• Public artist USSR A.M.GERASIMOV Museum-Estate
• Aleksandr Gerasimov at Find a Grave