The Russian Academy Of Arts

Organized to mark the 75th anniversary of the People’s Artist of Russia, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Arts Lev Shepelev, the retrospective in Tseretely Art Gallery features more than 100 works by the master from all his creative periods and in all the variety of his artistic interests including his recent graphic sheets.

Lev Shepelev is a recognized master of graphic art. The distinguished artists and talented teachers Aristarkh Lentulov and Yury Pimenov were the first to reveal his talent for drawing. After the graduation from the Moscow Art School he entered V. Surikov Moscow State Academy Art Institute where he studied under E. Kibrick, M. Matorin, Y. Reiner.

The artist’s creative work is mostly devoted to the theme of a city – its history, today’s life, the downtown and suburbs, corners of old districts. He depicts not only such cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg or Paris, but also quiet provincial towns, architectural masterpieces in old Russian towns - churches and monasteries. His cityscapes show a nostalgic longing for the beauty that existed in the past.

Lev Shepelev also works in the genre of portrait and still life. Recently he has started creating sheets-reflections of the surrounding world, monuments of world culture, preserved and lost spiritual values.

A brilliant graphic artist with a special expressiveness in his strokes he also possesses a perfect mastery of various techniques. He likes to work in gouache and has a fine sense of its true qualities, the wealth of reflexes which create a soft velvety surface on the paper.

From 1990 till 2001 Lev Shepelev was a Rector V. Surikov Moscow State Academy Art Institute. In 2002 he organized and became a head of the Chair of Graphic Art in S. Stroganov Moscow State Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts where he has been teaching up to now.

His works are in museum and private collections in Russia and many other countries.

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