Paintings by Boris Ugarov Are Exhibited in the Academy Museum in St. Petersburg
06 February – 24 February 2008
The Academy Museum, 17 University Embankment, St. Petersburg
The display of works by the People’s Artist of USSR in exhibition halls of the Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg opens on February 6, 2008.
The exposition encompasses 125 paintings from the artist’s family private collection, as well as collections of the State Russian Museum, the Academy Museum, the State Museum of Political History of Russia.
Boris Ugarov is a prominent master of the second half of the 20th century who went down into the history of Russian painting as the creator of big historical canvases such as October (1964), Rebirth (1985), Leningrad in 1941 (1961) and others.
Boris Ugarov was born in Leningrad and after finishing school was recruited for the army during World War II. After the War, Ugarov made up his mind to become an artist and enrolled at I. Repin State Academy Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he majored in painting first under V. Oreshnikov and Andrei Mylnikov and later perfected his skill in the workshop of monumental painting run by Igor Grabar. After the end of his post-graduate studies he started working as a teacher in his Alma-Mater. For many years, he ran the workshop of easel painting and a whole pleiad of painters came from his school. Since 1977 Boris Ugarov headed I. Repin State Academy Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and from 1983 till 1991 was a President of the USSR Academy of Arts.
Boris Ugarov is known not only as a historical painter, but also as a gifted landscapist who has never longed for showing off topics and critical conditions of nature. Through conventional motifs he exposed inexhaustible sources of beauty of his native land’s countryside. The sensitivity and harmony in his poetic perception of nature, delicate portrayal of the play of light in his landscapes resemble works by such Russian painters as Isaak Levitan, Konstantin Korovin, Valentin Serov who were his beloved artists.
Boris Ugarov also showed himself to be a talented portraitist. Except for his noted portrait of composer Andrei Petrov (State Russian Museum), all his works of this genre are of chamber character. He produced a series of portraits of his family members distinguished by deep penetration into their inner world of soul.
A special place is occupied by works devoted to Alexander Pushkin. The exhibition highlights a few compositions from Boris Ugarov’s cycle in honor of this noted Russian poet. The artist senses clearly the perturbation of the poet’s feelings, tragedy of his extraordinary fate, greatness of his poetic irradiations (A. Pushkin in Trigorskoye, 1982; A. Pushkin: White Nignt, 1985; A. Pushkin: Promenade, 1987).
The exhibition is an unparalleled opportunity to appreciate the talent of Boris Ugarov.
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