Almost portraits. Exhibition of Kukryniksy caricatures. To the 100th anniversary of the creative community Automatic translate

The project "Almost Portraits. Exhibition of caricatures by "Kukryniksy". For the 100th anniversary of the creative community" opens the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum on December 3 in Tula. On the site of the Museum named after Porfiry Nikitich Krylov, one of the participants of the group, BTM will show a series of caricatures by artists on legendary cultural figures.

Visitors to the exhibition will see Kukryniksy’s caricatures of Vsevolod Meyerhold, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Olga Knipper-Chekhova, Georgy Tovstonogov, Sergei Mikhalkov, Maxim Gorky, Bernard Shaw, Jean Vilar, Yves Montand, made between 1933 and 1957. Each caricature is supplemented with a photograph of the hero so that the viewer can see the artists’ amazing ability to convey instantly recognizable character traits.

In total, more than 60 items from the collection of the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum are included in the exhibition.

Before the exhibition, the Bakhrushin Museum specialists restored the unique items. The restorers cleaned the caricatures from surface dirt and glued small tears along the edges. The losses were filled with similar author’s paper. Finally, the caricatures were dried under a press.

The members of the group, Mikhail Kupriyanov, Porfiry Krylov and Nikolay Sokolov, met while studying at the Higher Art and Technical Workshops, where they lived in the same dormitory and worked for the wall newspaper "Red October". In 1922, Kupriyanov and Krylov united as Kukry and Krykup, and in 1924 Sokolov joined them. Then, for the first time, a joint signature of the artists was placed under a common work - Kukryniksy.

The artists were influenced by Russian literature – the Kukryniksy were personally acquainted with Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Mayakovsky, illustrated stories in magazines and books by Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov, Ilf and Petrov. Work in the theater was only part of the Kukryniksy’s work, but their participation in the creation of a number of performances was an important stage in the artists’ development and an invaluable contribution to theatrical art. Their first experience of stage design was the performance “The Bedbug” at the Vs. Meyerhold Theater based on the play by Vladimir Mayakovsky. The author personally invited the artists to design the production – the group created sketches of makeup, costumes and scenery. The premiere of “The Bedbug” took place in 1929. The performance was a huge success and was hotly discussed by the press. Igor Ilyinsky’s makeup sketch for the role of Ivan Prisypkin will be presented at the exhibition.

Two years later, Kukryniksy designed the play "The First Candidate" for the Moscow Satire Theatre, and a year later - the production "Alarm" for the TRAM Theatre. The artists’ last work in the theatre was the play "The City of Fools" (Moscow Satire Theatre).

"The collective work of Kukryniksy was sharp, but always retained humor and kindness. Their works became part of the country’s cultural heritage, and their style and approach to creating works of art inspired entire generations of artists," said the author of the exhibition concept, leading specialist of the exhibition and art projects department of the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum Tatyana Voitekhovskaya.

The Kukryniksy were members of the USSR Academy of Arts, Heroes of Socialist Labor, and People’s Artists. The creative union of artists disintegrated with the death of Porfiry Krylov in 1990. Mikhail Kupriyanov passed away in 1991, and Nikolai Sokolov passed away in 2000.

In total, the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum’s collection contains over 250 exhibits related to the work of the Kukryniksy family: sketches for the plays “The Bedbug” (1929), “The First Candidate” (1930) and “The City of Foolov” (1932), a poster for the play “Bathhouse” (1930), as well as caricatures of actors, writers and cultural figures.