Aristarkh Lentulov (January 4, 1882 - April 15, 1943) was a major Russian avant-garde

Russian avant-garde

The Russian avant-garde is an umbrella term used to define the large, influential wave of modern art that flourished in Russia approximately 1890 to 1930 - although some place its beginning as early as 1850 and its end as late as 1960...

 artist of Cubist

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

 orientation who also worked on set designs for the theatre.

Biography

Aristarkh Lentulov was born in the town of Nizhny Lomov near Penza

Penza

-Honors:A minor planet, 3189 Penza, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978, is named after the city.-Notable residents:...

 into the family of a rural priest. He studied art in the Penza

Penza

-Honors:A minor planet, 3189 Penza, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978, is named after the city.-Notable residents:...

 and Kiev

Kiev

Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

 art schools from 1897 to 1905, and then in the private studio of Dmitry Kardovsky

Dmitry Kardovsky

Dmitry Kardovsky was a Russian artist, illustrator and stage designer.-Biography:He was born near Pereslavl-Zalessky in the Yaroslavl province. After studying law at Moscow University, he then studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg from 1892, under Pavel Chistyakov and Ilya Repin...

 in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 in 1906.

He lived in Moscow from 1909, and he was one of the founders of the avant-garde exhibiting association of artists, the Jack of Diamonds

Jack of Diamonds (artists)

Jack of Diamonds , also called Knave Of Diamonds, was a group of artists founded in 1909 in Moscow. The group included Robert Falk, Aristarkh Lentulov, Ilya Mashkov, Alexander V. Kuprin, Alexander Osmerkin, Wladimir Burliuk, and Pyotr Konchalovsky. The Knave of Diamonds was a scandalous exhibition...

 group. This group remained active until its dissolution in 1916.

From 1910 to 1911 Lentulov studied at the Le Fauconnier studio and the La Palette Academy in Paris. Whilst there, he became acquainted with contemporary French painters such as Albert Gleizes

Albert Gleizes

Albert Gleizes , was a French painter. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a fabric designer who ran a large industrial design workshop...

, Jean Metzinger

Jean Metzinger

Jean Metzinger was a French painter.Metzinger was born in Nantes, France. Initially he was influenced by Fauvism and Impressionism, but from 1908 he was associated with Cubism. Metzinger was a member of the Section d'Or group of artists...

, Fernand Léger

Fernand Léger

Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...

 and Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...

 and after absorbing fauvists' and cubists' principles, developed his own unique coulorful style of painting. Later, after his return to Russia in 1912 he became a major influence on what to become the Russian futurism and in particular Cubo-Futurism

Cubo-Futurism

Cubo-Futurism was the main school of painting and sculpture practiced by the Russian Futurists.When Aristarkh Lentulov returned from Paris in 1913 and exhibited his works in Moscow, the Russian Futurist painters adopted the forms of Cubism and combined them with the Italian Futurists'...

. Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...

 and Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian painter and art theoretician, born of ethnic Polish parents. He was a pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement.-Early life:...

 were both influenced by him.

From pre-revolutionary

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

 times, Lentulov was actively involved in various theatrical projects, designing for plays in the Kamerny Theatre

Kamerny Theatre

The Kamerny Theatre was a chamber theatre in Moscow, founded in 1914 by director Alexander Tairov . Over the next 35 years, this small, intimate theater became "recognized as a major force in Russian theater"...

 (The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life...

, 1916) and contributing sets for a production of Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

's Prometheus

Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...

in the Bolshoi Theatre

Bolshoi Theatre

The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...

 in 1919.

In 1928 Lentulov entered into the Society of Moscow artists, which included artists formerly associated with the Jack of Diamonds group. He became chairman of the Society and also started teaching at the Russian state art and technical school (VKhUTEMAS

VKhUTEMAS

Vkhutemas ) was the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas. The workshops were established by a decree from Vladimir Lenin with the intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of the highest qualifications for...

).

Lentulov died in Moscow and is buried in the Vagankovo Cemetery

Vagankovo Cemetery

Vagan'kovskoye Cemetery , established in 1771, is located in the Krasnaya Presnya district of Moscow...

.

Works

• Saint Basil's Cathedral, 1913, Tretyakov Gallery
  Tretyakov Gallery
  The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection,...
  
  , Moscow.
• Ringing, 1913, GTG
• Moscow, 1913, GTG;
• In The iverskoy, 1916, GTG;
• View with the red house, 1917;
• Churches. New Jerusalem , 1917;
• Self-portrait with the violin
• Portrait A. 4. Tairova. 1920;
• The cracking of petroleum refinery, 1931, GTG;
• Night on the patriarch ponds, 1928, GTG;
• Passionate area at night, 1928, GRM
• Sunset in the Volga, 1928;
• The sun above the roofs. Rise, 1928;
• Vegetables, 1933, GTG
• Building of the metro over the Lubyanka area, 1936, GTG;

External links

• Artcyclopedia Links to Lentulov's works
• Virtual Museum Biography