Vsevolod Bazhenov

Vsevolod Andreevich Bazhenov (Russian: Все́волод Андре́евич Баже́нов; February 18, 1909, Serdobsk, Russian Empire – August 2, 1986, Leningrad, USSR) was a Soviet, Russian painter who lived and worked in Leningrad. He was a member of the Leningrad branch of Union of Artists of Russian Federation, and regarded as one of the representatives of the Leningrad school of painting, most famous for his landscape paintings.

Vsevolod Andreevich Bazhenov was born February 18, 1909 in the town Serdobsk, in the Saratov Governorate of the Russian Empire into an artistic family. His father was an artist and taught in a real school. He became the first teacher of Vsevolod. Later he studied in Serdobsk art studio of artists A. Gofert and N. Kuzmin. Besides drawing and painting, Bazhenov was a music lover. His mother Evgenia Nikovaevna was a pianist.

Arabian coast. 1962

Bazhenov graduated high school in 1928 and moved to Leningrad. Between the years of 1928-1930 he studied at the Tavricheskaya Art School, where he was a student of Mikhail Avilov, David Kiplyck, and Vladimir Fedorovich. In 1930 Bazhenov left the third-year college courses and arrived at the surveyors. According to some sources, the reason for his leaving was a difficult financial situation or the reorganization of the department of painting. After leaving the course, Bazhenov worked in exploration, first as a surveyor, then as a superintendent and chief of field parties. During expeditions, he painted many sketches of life in the Ural Region, Armenia, Khibiny, Karelia, the Caucasus and Kurdistan. From 1934 to 1941, Bazhenov worked at the Leningrad mapping factory.

In 1940 he married Catherine Andreyevna Kuznetsova. His eldest son Alexander was born June 24, 1941, and later became a filmmaker.

After the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Bazhenov and his family were sent to Sverdlovsk city for specialty. In December 1942 he was drafted into the Red Army with the rank of lieutenant-technique as a senior cartographer. Bazhenov was discharged at the end of 1945, and awarded the Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945".

In late 1945 Bazhenov returned to Leningrad. From the autumn of 1946 he worked as painter for hire in LenIzo. In 1946, his middle son Vladimir was born, followed in 1952 by his youngest Andrew.

Bazhenov is first referred to in art exhibitions dating from 1937. After 1951, he was constantly involved in Leningrad, Republican, and All-Union exhibitions of soviet artists, including the All-Union Art Exhibition of 1957 in Moscow, devoted to the 40th Anniversary of the October Revolution. His plaintings included landscapes, genre scenes, seascapes, still lifes, works in oil and tempera paintings.

In the 1950s, Bazhenov made some long trips around the country to gather materials for paintings, including East and West Siberia, Altai Province and the Ural Region. As a result of these trips, Bazhenov was considered a leading master of nature studies in Leningrad. In 1951, Bazhenov was admitted to the Leningrad Union of Artists.

Among his works of the 1950s and early 1960s "Fishermen" (1949), "Arable land" (1950), "Mstinskoe reservoir", "Early Spring" (both 1951), "Spring Evening" (1953), "Altai-Chemal", "Winter Morning", "Before the Storm", "The Sun hid behind the mountain" (all 1956), "Blue Altai", "Industrial Lights", "Ploughing virgin land in the mountains" (both 1957), "On the bank of Selenga", "On the Barguzin River", "Baykal Lake. The Gull's Island" (all 1958), "Neva Industrial" (1959), "Near Leningrad", "Twilight", "The launching of the tanker Beijing" (1960), "Sunrise", "Lights of Angara River", "Siberian route" (all 1961), "Leningrad port", "Volkhov River", "Old Ladoga" (all 1964), "Winter Sketch", "Spring in the Forest" (both 1965), and others.

In the Ha Long Bay. 1962

In 1962 Bazhenov embarked on a working voyage aboard the ship "Eugene Nikishin", sailing from Leningrad to Vladivostok and around Europe and Asia with stops in ports of Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore and Vietnam. During the course of the voyage, which took him through eleven seas and oceans, and lasted more than three months, Bazhenov created nearly two hundred sketches, paintings and drawings. His nature sketches and direct impressions of the voyage led to larger works, finished later in his Leningrad art studio.

After his return in 1963, about 120 works from this series of sketches and paintings were first exhibited in Leningrad, and following that, in other cities. Among them are the works "Arabian Coast", "Boats at the Sea", "In the Singapore Strait", "Denmark on the horizon", "In the Ha Long Bay", "Dolphins play", "Suez Canal", and others.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Bazhenov worked with a group of Leningrad artists, and painted pictures for the mess rooms of ocean-going ships and submarines. He create about 100 paintings for ships of various purposes, mostly landscapes of his country. Most of these works were installed on the warships of the Pacific and Northern fleets. He also took part in the creation of special technologies for protecting pictures from the high humidity of a long-time voyage. In 1976, the artist was awarded the commendation of the Navy of the USSR for this job.

Since the mid-1960s for twenty years Bazhenov was the head of a creative group of artists in the House of creativity «Staraya Ladoga» in Staraya Ladoga. Here he painted many sketches and paintings, among them "Winter Sketch", "March in the House of Creativity", "Spring Sketch" (all 1967), "By the spring" (1969), "Spring is on the way" (1974), "The House of Artistic Creativity Staraya Ladoga", "Last Snow" (both 1977), "A March" (1980), "In spring at the Volkhov River" (1981), and others.

Bazhenov visited Karelia for the first time in 1931. Of the artist's creative journeys, it has been said that Karelia was one of his most special locations. In 1981 he first visited Valaam island, at the invitation of the local museum. From then until death Valaam was one of the main themes of his work. In 1984 the Valaam museum held a solo exhibition of paintings by Vsevolod Bazhenov. In its archives are kept many paintings based on impressions from visiting the island.

Vsevolod Andreevich Bazhenov died on August 2, 1986 in Leningrad aged seventy-eight. He is remembered mostly for his landscapes, seascapes, and small-format nature studies. His personal exhibitions were in Leningrad (1963, 1982), and Saint Petersburg (1994, 2009). His paintings reside in the Russian State Museum, in art museums and private collections in Russia, Japan, France, England, in the U.S., China, and throughout the world