Dmitry Maevsky

Dmitry Ivanovich Maevsky (Russian: Дми́трий Ива́нович Мае́вский; May 17, 1917, Petrograd, Russian Empire – July 23, 1992, Saint Petersburg, Russia) was a Soviet Russian painter, lived and worked in Leningrad, a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists, regarded as one of representatives of the Leningrad school of painting, most famous for his lyrical landscapes.

Dmitry Ivanovich Maevsky was born May 17, 1917 in city Petrograd (former Saint Petersburg), Russian Empire. His childhood and youth in ancient Russian city of Rzhev. Here in 1930, Dmitry Majewski graduated from the seven years school. Passion for drawing led him to the studio of the artist Shvedov, where Dmitry Maevsky get his first experience of drawing and painting.

In 1933 Maevsky comes to Leningrad to continue his education. In 1933–1935 years he studied in industrial college, simultaneously preparing to enter the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1935 Maevsky passed the entrance exams at the Department of Painting of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but was not enrolled because of lack of vacancies due to the reorganization of the institute.

The Ukrainian homestead. 1954

In years 1937–1939 Maevsky studied in Art Studio head by Isaak Brodsky in Leningrad. Since 1939, he has participated in Art Exhibitions. In 1938 he married Valentina Chistyakova. In 1939 they had a daughter Ludmila.

In 1939 Maevsky was drafted into the Red Army. He took part in the Winter War, and in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people against Nazi Germany and its allies. Maevsky was awarded the medal "For Victory over Germany".

After demobilization in 1946, Dmitry Maevsky gradually restoring skills. In years 1946–1953 he continued his studies in the art studios of known Leningrad artist Piotr Buchkin, then of Alexander Kharshak. Since the mid 1950s he was constantly involved in art exhibitions of Leningrad artists. Most famous as a master of portraits and lyrical landscape. In 1955 Dmitry Maevsky was admitted to the Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists. Art works, showing them at exhibitions of this period, give an idea about his picturesque style. Among them are "The Ukrainian homestead" (1954), "Thawed patchs" (1955), "Barns" (1956), "The New School", "A Suda River" (both 1957), "Blast furnace", "Factory Yard", "Nizhniy Tagil city" (all 1958), "Izhora plant" (1959), "Steel-maker" (1960), "A Breath of spring", "Portrait of Gorunov" (1961), "Blue Shadows" (1962), "At reading", "Frosty Day", "The Weather recovered" (all 1963), "A Portrait of an Old Bolshevik Andreev", "Zoya - a Komsomol Member of Dzerzhinsky Sovkhoz"(both 1964), and others. Individual artist's style is distinguished by adherence to the traditions of tonal painting, restrained mild flavor with a predominance of green, blue and ocher tones, dexterity of plein air, a few generalized pattern.

April. 1968

Since the mid 1960s, Dmitry Maevsky many lived and worked in the village of Podol, Tver region, near the Academic Dacha, where he makes most of the works of this period. The flowering of his creativity relates to the period from the late 1950s until the mid 1970s. The artist continues to work on portraits of war veterans, the advanced workers and farmers. And although he achieved considerable success, this genre and work to orders are increasingly perceived them as an inevitable tribute for the opportunity to engage in real creativity. And here it all the more attractive landscape of Central Russia with a high sky and the vast expanses of fields, tending the horizon distances of the forest, the village outskirts, the March sun and the colors of autumn. Nature in his paintings full of understated beauty and dignity, and pictorial language is precise and delicate. It allows him to create a truly lyrical images.

This dichotomy, which became a sign of the times, and typical for many artists, who will accompany the creation of Maevsky until 1980, finding reflection in his paintings: "April" (1968), "Summer Day in Podol village" (1970), "Portrait of Kukin, a veteran of Great Patriotic war" (1971), "Portrait of farmer Nosov" (1972), "Portrait of Grinev, the сollective farm worker" (1973), "Fields and copses", "Portrait of tractor-driver Filyaev", "Portrait of Vera Dieva, collective farm brigadier" (1975 ), "Cool May" (1976), "Portrait of a Tractor Driver Khrustalev", "A March Sun" (both 1977), "Sunny May" (1978), "The village of Podol" (1980), and others.

Late artist's creativity are still bound to the land of Tver, and here he spent most of his time. The works of this period differed more restrained palette, changing their mood. They often reflect shades of sadness. His painting acquire greater generality, the drawing becomes more laconic. Composition of painting acquire a more rigorous form and expressing the author's intent.

All that was done by Dmitry Maevsky in landscape painting, it was extremely sincere and deeply felt, foreign to the slightest hint of external effects, the play, imitation. Soft, understated beauty of Russian nature was understood and shared with them how little anyone of the artists. Particularly worried about its time to spring awakening: the first spring sun, the first heat, the first green, the last snow.

In 1970–1980 the works of Maevsky were represented at the exhibitions of contemporary Soviet art in Japan in the Gikosso gallery, later in the 1990s at art fairs and auctions of Russian art in France, USA, Italy, England, where his art has become its admirers.

Maevsky died on July 23, 1992 in Saint Petersburg on the seventy-six year of life. His paintings reside in Art museums and private collections in Russia, in the U.S., England, Japan, France, and throughout the world.