Graphic art Automatic translate

The Russian Academy of Arts presents the exhibition “The Art of Graphics” by People’s Artist of the Russian Federation and Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, Professor Lev Viktorovich Shepelev (1937-2013), where several dozen works from the collection of the author’s family, private collections, and funds of the Museum and Exhibition Association of the Russian Academy of Arts will be shown.

The work of Lev Shepelev is distinguished by brilliant craftsmanship, masterly mastery of complex graphic techniques, sophistication, laconicism and pictorial expressiveness of the plastic structure. An urban artist, an artist of the city landscape, he gives the viewer the beauty and uniqueness of a big city and a quiet province, the solemnity of architectural ensembles, the genius of unknown Russian architects who erected white stone churches. His works include famous monuments, temples, museums, and ordinary city blocks, the views of which become genuine artistic images, sometimes containing some age-old secret that is revealed only to a true artist.

L. V. Shepelev was born on January 31, 1937 in Moscow. In 1961 he graduated from the Faculty of Graphics of the Moscow State Art Institute. V.I. Surikov, where his teachers were E. Kibrik, M. Matorin, Y. Reiner. The entire biography of Lev Viktorovich was associated with active pedagogical and social activities. Since 1961, he taught for 40 years at MGAHI named after. V.I. Surikov, and from 1990 to 2001 he headed this institute as rector. In 2002, he created the department of “Graphic Art” at the Moscow State University of Art and Industry named after. S. G. Stroganov, which he led and trained several generations of talented artists. He was elected Academician-Secretary of the Graphics Department of the Russian Academy of Arts and Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Arts for Education.

An individual style and his own artistic vision were formed quite early. He mainly worked in the rather rare and complex technique of gouache, which in its color palette and density is at the intersection of painting and graphics. In the late 1950s - early 1960s, the circle of creative interests of L. V. Shepelev included the theme of the city. He creates a series of works dedicated to Moscow, which today are perceived as documents of the era. Old streets that have retained their individuality, the juxtaposition of historical and modern architecture are constantly present in stories telling about the life of the capital.

Petersburg motifs occupy a special place in the author’s work; he felt and was able to convey the rare poetic individuality of the city. Based on the laws of decorative plein air, the artist creates one of the most subtle lyrical works, “In the Alley of the Engineering Castle.” Winter refines the master’s color palette, offering him a variety of ashen, graphite, and pearl shades, so characteristic of the Northern capital. Lev Shepelev has “his own” Petersburg: it is a city not only of brilliant embankments and palaces, but also of no less famous well courtyards, remote firewalls, factory districts and neighborhoods where the heroes of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works lived.

His travels throughout Russia and abroad were a constant stimulus for the creation of new works. No matter what country the artist visited, he was able to capture in a generalized and laconic form what struck him most. The beauty and grandeur of the Baltic cities have become the theme of many graphic works. The series dedicated to Finland is remembered with a vivid artistic language: its very nature with its discreet, coldish beauty suggested the solution of sheets with a clearly structured composition and laconic color scheme. The artist paints based on direct impressions from nature, but over the years he moves away from an accurate representation of what he saw, formalizing nature in his own way, rejecting the superfluous, secondary, looking for the most important thing.

In recent years, the master has increasingly created reflection sheets, conveying various states of nature, filled with a special atmosphere of spirituality and thoughtfulness, inviting the viewer to stop and think about the frailty of existence. These are the works of L. Shepelev in recent years: “Night Falls on the Rhine”, “Castles of the Rhine”, “Willows in Dresses” are distinguished by the “magic of color”. They are filled with a special spectacle that encourages leisurely contemplation. He often returns to old motifs, placing semantic accents in a new way, achieving great expressiveness in plastic and color solutions.