Lev Alexandrovich Russov Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1926 - d. 1987

Lev Alexandrovich Russov (January 31, 1926 – February 20, 1987) was a Soviet Russian painter, graphic artist, and sculptor, living and working in Leningrad, a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists[1] and representative of the Leningrad school of painting,[2] most known for his portrait painting.

Lev Alexandrovich Russov was born January 31, 1926, in Leningrad, into a family of employees. His father Alexander Semionovich Russov came from peasants of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, his mother Iraida Semionovna Nemtsova was from Kostroma. In 1939, passion for drawing leads Russov to the art studio of the Vyborgsky district of Leningrad, where he is engaged up to the outbreak of war.

In December 1941, along with his mother he was evacuated from the siege of Leningrad in the Gorky Province. Soon he had an accident that could change the fate of the future artist. Under circumstances not completely clear, Rusov lost his right eye. According to the artist's son, this happened from a careless jab of whip. However already 1943, he moved to Kostroma city, where goes to the regional art school.

In 1945, in connection with the return to Leningrad Russov was transferred to Tavricheskaya Art School (now known as an Art College named after Nicholas Roerich), from which he graduated in 1947.[3]

After graduation Russov entered the first course of Painting Department of Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin, studied of Yuri Neprintsev and Genrikh Pavlovsky. However, having studied for two years for health reasons had to leave class. In 1951–1955 Russov taught drawing in the secondary schools of Leningrad, while continuing to worked on his painting skills using the experience gained while studying at the Academy.[4]

Soon Russov shows his work in Leningrad Union of Artists and he is invited to participate in art exhibitions together with leading masters of the fine arts of Leningrad. At the Spring Art Exhibitions of 1954 and 1955, he presented works A Girl with a Bow[5] (1954), A Boy and a Sea and Portrait of artist Veniamin Kremer[6] (both 1955) to attract attention to himself as a talented portrait painter.

In 1955, Russov was admitted to the Leningrad Union of Soviet artists on the recommendations of the famous painters Piotr Buchkin, Yuri Neprintsev and Veniamin Kremer. In addition to portraits, Russov during these years painted genre compositions, still lifes, landscapes, worked in the technique of oil painting, watercolors and woodcuts.

The year 1955 was marked for Russov by meetings with people who changed his personal and creative destiny. He meets Ekaterina Vasilievna Balebina (born December 29, 1933, the daughter of Vasily Balebin, the famous torpedo bomber, Hero of the Soviet Union), who will soon become his wife, the mother of his son Andrei and the main muse. Charming and lively, full of self-sacrifice, she will serve for Russov as a model for many paintings and portraits, create and protect the world in which the artist's creative gift will unfold and sparkle in full strong.

In the same year, Lev Russov met with Yevgeny Mravinsky, their relationship grew into a long-years friendship, to which we owe several portraits of the outstanding conductor, created during 1950-1980s.

In 1960–1980 Russov creative life was divided between the Leningrad art studio, the home in Fonarny Lane and the village of Pavshino on the Oredezh River, where on the high bank of the river he built a cottage with a workshop and worked many months each year.

Lev Alexsandrovich Russov died on February 20, 1987 in Leningrad in the sixty-second year of his life from heart disease. His works reside in museums and private collections in Russia, USA, Norway, Great Britain, Sweden, France and other countries. The widow of the artist Ekaterina Vasilievna Russov outlived her husband by 15 years and died on June 20, 2002 in St. Petersburg at the sixty-ninth year of life.

In 1970, at the Leningrad Physical-Technical Institute named after A.F. Ioffe, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, it consisted of the only lifetime exhibition of Russov's works