The artist is Filonov
At the turn of the 1920s, the situation around Filonov, one of the most proletarian artists among avant-garde artists, was also very heated. In 1929, an exhibition of his work was finished in the Russian Museum for almost a year, but it never opened for censorship reasons. On other expositions then his work was not accepted. Essentially, Filonov lived with his wife, that with his proud character it was unbearable. In search of a way out of the situation, close friends agreed on several orders for the artist. He had to perform two or three work on production topics in a realistic spirit. Filonov resisted for a long time, but under the huge pressure of friends and wife agreed.
In October 1931, the artist was sent to the Krasny Putilovets factory, where in tractor workshops he makes sketches for a future picture. In May 1932, work on the canvas “Tractor Workshop of the Putilov Plant” was completed, but it was not accepted, they returned to the artist without explanation. Most likely, the main reason was the absence of the required optimism in the work of the required. But Filonov managed to fulfill another order – a portrait of the drummer Elena Vasilyeva from the lace department of the Krasnaya Zarya factory. Reviewers, seeing the first sketches of the artist, concluded: “This elderly woman with glasses is not a type of drummer! Paphos is needed here!””. Filonov agreed with this and continued the work. As the entry in his diary testifies, he “drew in the portrait of T. Vasilyeva four figures, except for her, and machines, t. To. The thing began to have a different meaning than before “. The last option caused a lot of discussions.
Igor Grabar, visiting the “Exhibition of paintings by the Leningrad Regional House of the Artist”, which opened in May 1933. In the recreation center named after the first five -year plan, he wrote: “The best that Filonov has is his portraits and genre paintings from modern Soviet life, performed without any tricks,“ dismemberment ”and“ shift ”, simply, seriously, seriously. They bribe sincerity and truthfulness “. However, the paintings that liked Grabar were criticized “on the left”. The famous musician and vanguard artist Mikhail Matyushin noted: “… a picture of the drummers of the sewing factory is a perfectly made but standing watch with a spring bursting with a twist … Filonov lost communication with nature, a familiar hard hand of a tightly“ made shape ”, he restrains the current moisture of life, And she completely disappears with him".
Nevertheless, the “shock” was accepted for printing and published by a separate reproduction for wide distribution, which was an isolated case in the biography of Filonov.
