Soviet Art at Principle Gallery

Principle Gallery on King Street, close to Potomac waterfront in the Old Town of Alexandria. Their collection of paintings from the Soviet era is impressive.

This Village Museum, was the first work I discovered there. The subject of the painting is speaking for itself: the peasants follow the explanations of the young teacher, who's showing them a famous image in Soviet iconography, Lenin addressing the Second Congress of the Soviets. Some other images are hanging on the wall: Lenin in Smolny, among them. The absent from the picture is Stalin: no wonder, the painting is dated 1965 and Stalin had ceased to be the official icon of the regime since the late fifties. It's a remarkable canvas this one, as it gathers all signs of Soviet mythology, Lenin, the Second Congress and the office in Smolny, the young teacher and the kolchozniky, the village museum.

The author of the painting, Nepostoev, lived in Yaroslavl. Would he have guessed the fate of his huge canvas? Well, now all his characters, Lenin and the attendants at the Second Congress of the Soviets, the young teacher from the village museum and the peasants, old or young, play the roles of their lives here in Northern Virginia, in the elegant gallery from King Street (which is not that bad, after all).

The two paintings that follow complete the mythology, so to speak: the Steelmaker (painted by Tartakovski in 1972) and the Truck Driver (painted by Khmelnitzky in 1954), it means the heavy industry and the constructions, the key economy domains in the eyes of Soviet policymakers.

The steelmaker seems to be cool and you would probably enjoy to have a glass of vodka or two with him (and eventually to try some arm wrestling, why not). Actually there is something weird: all the stuff on the canvas is just too perfect in the slightest detail, the gloves, the hard hat, the self-confident smile, the size of Golub (this is the name of our hero), everything. It's the Soviet art of the seventies, the art of the Stagnation era.

Meanwhile the truck driver is much more credible: a young enthusiastic guy, probably just released from the military, still poor, with the head full of dreams: the constructor with all life ahead. Interesting, the truck driver comes from 1954. Some people could still dream for a new better life then, for new horizons. After all, people felt, for right or for wrong, that after the years of war their country was now advancing, besides Stalin was no more, some openness was in the air and the new leaders were speaking something about a peaceful economical race. But in the seventies everything was over and that's why the steelmaker Golub appears to us just solemn, it means rigid: by that time Socialism was dead, and death drapes itself always in solemnity.





Babushka Matriona is dated 1950. Possibly the best work from the collection. The author is a woman, Rumiantseva. Now, there are two Rumiantseva who lived in the same epoch and belonged both to the so-called Leningrad School. My guess is that this painting is authored by Galina Rumiantseva (and not by Kapitolina Rumiantseva). I could be wrong, of course.




As for this one, it dates from 1964. The author is Yevlev. It reminds me of a book I was reading as a child; a book written by Nikolai Nosov in 1951, Vitya Maleev at School and at Home. Like Vitya, the small boy seems to have done poorly his theme in maths, so the teacher is scolding him.

Well, that Vitya should be now in his early fifties, and, who knows, he could be somewhere in America, speaking English with a heavy accent. Possibly he is now a math teacher by himself, dealing with formidable kids who do poorly their themes because they do not have enough time for their games; surely he kept the book with him and he is reading it now to his grandchildren.

I did it when my son was four or five years old, I read him the book of Nosov, and I lived again the whole story. I am wondering whether he kept the book on his turn, for my two granddaughters. We are living remotely each other. Next time when I go to them I will ask. I know for sure that he kept the stories of Andersen.

How did these paintings arrive here at the Principle Gallery, that's another story. It's to be told in some near future: all in good time.

(Principle Gallery)