Osmerkin Alexander Alexandrovich (1892-1953)

A. Osmerkin was kind of talented divers. He was fond of theater in his youth dreamed of becoming an actor, even going to study singing. Love for the theater continued in the future, but won a passion for painting.

Passion for the latest trends in the art of stop Osmerkin finish Kiev Art School. In 1913 he arrived in Moscow, working in the studio Mashkov.
Next year, for the first time participated in the exhibition "Jack of Diamonds". Like all members of this association, Osmerkin loves juicy, "tasty" paintings, like P. Cezanne and the cubists and, if all experiments, tends not to stray too far in his works from the direct perception of nature ("Nude against the Persian heels", 1914 -15, "The Lady with the lorgnette", 1917, "Still Life with a clock", 1918, "The Café", 1919, etc.).
However, splint and "primitives" are less important to the artist than his teacher Mashkov. Osmerkin feature a smaller scale, the attraction to a more subtle and understated color scheme, distinctive sense of rhythm and at the same time not so obvious enthusiasm corporeality, materiality of the material world.

In the early 1920's. Osmerkin feels the exhaustion of the old means of expression in his art planned a decisive shift towards realism. In this he was not original: the same evolution occurred with the other members of "Jack of Diamonds". Artist discovers the Barbizon school, G. Courbet, Rembrandt Russian artists of the XIX century. ( Ivanov and others), the poetry of Russian scenery, the charm of earlier negated subject in painting, realizes that the portrait is not just an excuse for the solutions of plastic (color and shape) of the problems.

First, in the painting becomes less Osmerkin elements of cubism, and it is as if a return to Cezanne ("Park", "Still Life with bandura," both in 1920, "Portrait of ET Barkova," "Portrait of a Girl," both in 1921, and others) .
the mid-1920s. Osmerkin work is quite realistic. Sacred for every sezannistov principle of "painting - this is the right color in the right place" remains firm, but the artist and are interested in the transfer of materials of different textures, and psychology (in the portrait) and lyrical (in landscapes), "Portrait of ET Barkova" (1921), "Portrait of the Artist MN Avetova" (1924), "The Hunting Still Life" (1923-24), "Washing. White Night" (1927), etc.

Among the themed paintings by the artist - and it bothered a lot, learning this new and challenging genre for him - more than any other known "Red Guards in the Winter Palace" (1927). However, despite all efforts, the master of thematic paintings Osmerkin or not. Far better he managed landscapes, portraits and still lifes. Above them Osmerkin worked hard and in 1930-40's.

He has always remained faithful to the principles of free, based on the harmony of color relationships painting. But it was not always easy: the artist was accused of formalism, in 1948, made it impossible to teach (from the end of the 1910s. Osmerkin taught at art universities in Moscow and then Leningrad). "Portrait of Anna Akhmatova" (1939-40), a series of landscapes of "New Holland" (1945) - perhaps the most famous works of the 1930s, 40s. Osmerkin was not the discoverer of new ways in art, and was a talented painter and cultural. He was completely devoted to art. Death found him at work.