Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Nikolai Baskakov

Nikolai Baskakov (1918-1993) lived and worked in Leningrad.

The first is one of my favorite paintings from the Soviet era. Like many Soviet paintings, its focus is on ordinary working people. Unlike many Soviet paintings, there is no heavy-handed political message, only a trio of milkmaids sharing a joke. One gets the impression that it is the woman on the right who has told the joke, and is enjoying her companions' reaction.

Milkmaids (1962)

The second painting is another clue that Baskakov was not your typical apparatchik. Here are a group of women workers gleefully mocking their male counterparts who have returned from fishing with not much to show for it. Not what you would expect from a Soviet era painting. One wonders if Baskakov suffered any repercussions for this painting.

 A Poor Catch

This one is more typically Soviet: a worker exerting himself heroically.


A Windy Day (1961)

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