Alexander Vladimirovich Grigoriev (; 28 May 1891 – 25 August 1961), was a Mari Soviet artist, public figure and academician. He is considered to be the first-renowned and the greatest Mari artist, who contributed to the development and formation of the fine arts in the Mari Territory.
Grigoriev studied at Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture with artists such as Ilya Mashkov and Abram Arkhipov; he travelled throughout the Soviet Union with Ilya Y. Repin, helping great painters as Nicolai Fechin. Grigoriev dedicated his life to art. Following the realism movement, Grigoriev painted genre paintings, portraits, landscapes and still lifes.
Through his national initiatives, Grigoriev became one of the most significant figures of Soviet Art in the 1920s. As founder of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, he influenced the art of the USSR throughout its existence. The A.V. Grigoriev Art and History Museum is part of his legacy; his dream was to make it the "Small Tretyakov Gallery".
Biography
Early life
Grigoriev was born on May 28, 1891, in the village of Petnury, Kozmodemyansk, to a family of rural intellectuals. His father was a teacher from a peasant background who, realizing the importance of education, enabled his son to continue his primary education in the provincial Kazan. At first, it was a teachers' seminary. From an early age, Alexander Grigoriev began to show great interest in visual arts. This was the period of the formation of the national fine arts. Art education was quite rare among Mari painters; Grigoriev was one of the first artists from Mari to receive a visual arts education.
Alexander, who discovered a great craving for painting, was attracted by art, and not a teacher's path. Therefore, he entered at the Kazan Art School (1910 - 1915), the major place of education and artistic culture of the Volga-Vyatka Territory. He studied under the guidance of his teachers, P.P. Benkov and the famous artist Nicolai Fechin. During this period, Alexander participated in a first exhibition in 1914.
Grigoriev received further art education at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1915-1917). Over that time, the future artist studies in the workshops of famous artists including Ilya Mashkov, Konstantin Korovin, Abram Arkhipov and Vasily Meshkova. Strong ties will more than once unite the artist with his teachers: Grigoriev, later occupying leading positions in Moscow, will always be ready to help and support the old artistic intelligentsia.
Career
Returned to his homeland
In 1919, Grigoriev returned to Kozmodemyansk with his young wife, Muscovite Evgenia Baklanova. He immediately became an active workers of the region. As the head of the Volost department of public education, he contributed to the opening of a decorative art workshop. The first local art exhibition was organized and an art school was created.
Grigoriev believed his compatriots needed artistic enlightenment, and for this reason he planned to dedicate his life to art. He also wanted to open a small version of the Tretyakov Gallery in his hometown. Seeing the paintings of the Volga-Kama exhibition, Grigoriev decided to organize a museum in the city, which became the first museum to open in the Volga-Vyatka region in the post-revolutionary years.
During his work in the Mari Territory, Grigoriev proved himself to be an excellent draftsman, a master of pencil portraits. This manifested itself in the portraits of people close to him and public figures ("Portrait of Father" - 1919, "Portrait of S. Loktev", "Portrait of Alafuzov" - 1920).
A national artist engaged
In 1922, Grigoriev was summoned to Moscow. The Soviet Union state was rebuilding the principles of new art, education and museums. Grigoriev worked in the Department for Museums and Protection of Art and Antiquity Monuments of the People's Commissariat for Education.
In the same year, Grigoriev, together with the chairman of the Itinerant Association and several other like-minded people, founded the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AARR), which had an important influence on art of the Soviet period. From 1923 to 1927, Grigoriev was elected as the chairman of the AHRR, which later influenced all Soviet art. In 1928, Grigoriev founded the Union of Soviet Artists and became the chairman until 1932.