Igor Ershov (1916 - 1985)

Born in a family 7noyabrya famous musicians. His father was a famous opera singer Ivan Yershov, mother of Sofia Angelova singer and vocal teacher.

Many artists of 60-70s, our colleagues, Igor Ershov was remembered as a man irrepressible nature, often do not agree with the habitual attitude to art. His judgments were sometimes harsh, but always fundamental.

II Ershov im.I.Repina graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1947. He studied first at the painting department in the studio Brodsky , and then moved to the graphic department, where his teachers were Shilingovsky, Zaitsev, I.Bilibin and K.Rudakov. This constellation "of recent maestro" unforgettable Silver Age forever folded views Ershov. Graduate work subsequently published in the Academic collected works of Alexander Pushkin were illustrations for "The Bronze Horseman." For this work, he was admitted to the Union of Artists.

In 1948, before the artists got a tough choice whether to go the way of art or become ... an opera singer. At Igor Ershov had great data, a pronounced talent for acting, and when combined with the big voice (baritone) and lovely appearance, it promised a brilliant theatrical career. By the end of 1948 he sang at the Maly Opera Theater in Leningrad for two seasons. Had success in the opera "War and Peace" SS Prokofiev as Kurakin and began acting in the film of the opera "Don Giovanni". But as a result of deliberation Ershov decided that it was not his way, not his destiny. And he wanted to go the way of creativity - creating, rather than performing, look yourself in the picture, painting and drawing.

In the years 1948-1954 the artist lived through the most difficult times for myself duality. It was the work of the writing and drawing a "dry brush" portraits of leaders, workers, farmers, and later moved to illustrating children's books. In those years, there were the first of his watercolors and drawings remotely resembling future paintings (1956-1960). A series of these works are now in the collections of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

From the nature of Igor Ershov had the rare gift of "exact" copy nature. He himself admitted that this "gift of nature" he was very disturbed then go to the "experiment" of painting, start looking in the abstract, to figurative art, which lie at the basis of all other tasks than just a copy. Until recently, the Naval Museum of St. Petersburg, in the permanent exhibition of the museum I.Ershova hung a painting on the theme of the heroism of a soldier, carrying wounded from the battlefield commander. How far away from the artist later this official "ordered" painting! With the arrival of Khrushchev's thaw, much has changed in the minds of people. Ershov refused to "dry brush" finally and fully immersed in the training itself. He always said, "I began to study his subject again. For me, opened a new world of plastics, strange shape, color, pattern ..." In those years, after so long a space for thinking and thirsting for knowledge of the artistic intelligentsia started this spring.

Igor Ershov absorbed by moving to the Hermitage. Where re-opened for public viewing Impressionists, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Monet and other artists. He spends hours in the public library, where leafing through a book with reproductions of modern Western painting. The big event of the year was the publication of a remarkable study Englishwoman Camilla Gray. Under the title "Russian experiment" on the artists of the twenties in Russia. Russian museum for I.Ershova became a regular place to visit, copy, study. For hours he sits in front of icons, examines Russian embroidery, lace, palehovskie box. As what you have seen and to know the strange and unusual refract in the artist and will be reflected in the new search Ershov. He'll get a few periods and each of them will be logical to move from one form to another plastic. If you build today a clear picture of Igor Ershov, you can share all of the following stages: social realism, impressionism, abstract and dreamlike symbolism ICON. The museums of Russia can be found perhaps all of these periods, and the West (London and Paris) are abstract works.
 

Information provided by Xenia Igorevna Krivosheina (Ershovoy) xenia@neuf.fr