Biography of the Tkachev brothers

The issue of the journal: 1 30 Retrospective exhibition of Alexei and Sergey Tkachev, opened in the engineering building of the Tretyakov Gallery from April 15 to July 17, presents masters who largely determined the fate of the National School of Painting in the second half of the 20th - early XXI centuries. The exposition contains near works related to the main stages of their paths in art and revealing the main directions of artistic searches.

There are large -scale “textbook” canvases from the Gallery collection, performed by the weaving in collaboration, and the paintings of the early period painted by each of the brothers independently, and the extensive sketchy material. All this is only part of the huge creative heritage of masters, who to this day continue to work on new compositions. Sergey Rod.

She forced many to grow up to time, crossing out everything that was in the past. So, the war erased the village of Chuchunovka from the face of the earth, where future artists were born. She did not spare the house in the fuel of the suburbs of Bryansk, where the Tkachev family moved in the year. It was here in the pre -war decade that the Tkachev’s path in art began, when, following the older brother Viktor, three younger ones - Sergey, Alexei and Vasily - began to visit the Iskruzhok in the city house of pioneers.

But painting has become the main thing of life for only two average sons, whose creative community was one of the phenomena of Russian art. Their destinies in their young years developed differently. Sergei Tkachev entered the Vitebsk Art College, known for its history and professional traditions.

Having studied for three years, he went to the army, fought, was wounded, after recovery he returned again. Since those years, the sketch of the “front -line shoemaker” was miraculously preserved, the property of author 1 written by him in the year. Subsequently, this sketch determined the appearance of the protagonist of the picture “In difficult years”, the Kharkov State Museum of Fine Arts.

Alexei Tkachev, as the winner of the All -Union Competition, announced in the year by the magazine “Young Artist”, was accepted without exams at the Moscow Secondary Art School - a unique educational institution for creatively gifted children, the selection of which was held throughout the country. He had to experience difficulties and deprivation of hard time.

The beginning of the war, Alexei met in a fuent, where he spent the summer holidays. When the German units approached Bryansk, the family went into evacuation in Sverdlovsk. He worked for more than six months at the Uralmash military plant. The night shifts were especially heavy, I did not want to sleep irresistibly, and the hunger was a constant companion ”3. Further events have become a real gift of fate for young talent.

Having found the address of the school in evacuation, Alexei Tkachev sent a letter to one of the teachers and soon received a challenge, which allowed us to join the fellow practitioners and continue to classes to love. At this time, I was a smart, frail kid gathered on the long road, difficult and long. During my journey to school, he made more than a dozen transfers, spent the night, where it got, ate, what would fall.

But I had a big goal - to study food, and when there is a goal, all obstacles are nothing ”4. Many pupils of the ICSC, who later became famous artists, recall that period as one of the most striking and fruitful in its history. Under the leadership of V. Dobroserdov, S. Mikhailov, V. ven Rechitalov and other wonderful teachers, they not only comprehended the basics of picturesque skill, but also grew creatively, sought the first successes in art.

Upon the return of the ICSC to Moscow, the best works of students, including Alexei Tkachev, were shown at the exhibition organized in the year in the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery. It turns out that we also needed the country, since it did not abandon us to the mercy of fate. In military and harsh Moscow, we saw that art lives and acts ”5. To m from the evacuation, the Gallery collections were brought.

This event was perceived as a real holiday. But Surikov’s picturesque works made a special impression on me. The appearance of the young man at that time is captured in the self -portrait of the year, built on the subtle harmony of condensed tones, with a compositional accent on the face that causes in memory the images from the paintings of old masters.

Interest in the great heritage of the past in young artists was brought up by teachers. Close attention to the picturesque tradition - primarily of national art - played in the future an important role in the formation of the creative individuality of the Tkachev brothers. After the war ended, their life paths again crossed. In the year, Alexei became a student of the Moscow Art Institute that did not have the name of V.

Surikov then, and a year later, after his brother, Sergey arrived at the picturesque faculty. Behind his shoulders was a harsh school of life and a passionate desire to return to art interrupted warfare. Before entering the institute, I had to seriously prepare, and here the help of a younger brother, whose creative growth was very significant, turned out to be invaluable.

Grabar, S. Gerasimov, G. Ryazhsky, A. Osmerkin, A. were invited by the young: V. Tsyplakov, Yu. Kugach, V. Nelchitailo, K.In the first courses, in the person of Dmitry Konstantinovich Mochalsky, teachers and friend found. With him, one might say, have passed next to his life ”7. Among the works of institute time - field studies, educational productions carried out by students as part of the general program - are the works created by Alexei and Sergey Tkachev during the summer holidays.

Leaving Moscow, they traveled along the Oka and the Volga, visited the parents who settled in the village of Lizov in Belarus, and relatives who remained after the war in the Urals. From trips to Astrakhan, to the Caspian, Zhiguli, Kostroma, often in the company of other young artists Tkachev brought rich full -scale material: portraits, landscapes, genre compositions that struck the freshness of the solutions and the accuracy of the found characteristics.

It was on these independent works that it was possible to determine the further path of development of a young artist. We remember how, after one of these views for the first time in our life, Sergei Vasilievich, who enjoyed great authority among young people, sorry for us, congratulated us on successful practice ”8. And today, the works of weaver student pores demonstrated at the retrospective exhibition are impressive with their picturesque quality.

The creative individuality of each of the brothers is clearly noticeable in them. Of particular interest in the genre, in the transfer of character is distinguished by the compositions of Sergei Tkachev. In the format of small sketches, he sought to find a plot worthy of being transferred to the picture “Lonely Fisherman”, just like that - from the watercolor sketch brought from the Volga - the plan of the large -scale picture of the “kids” - a timing written after a decade.

In the student works of Alexei Tkachev, as in the sketches of his brother, an inexhaustible variety of portrait types and characters is revealed. Some of his early works were part of the exhibition: “Girl”, “Gorbun” both - “Zina Voronetskaya”, “Girl with braids” next to them - genre and landscape work, in which the artist’s attention is not so much drawn to the plot as to the plastic motive that makes up the basis of the composition: the road that goes to the horizon of “Twilight.

Koltovo ”,, the smooth outlines of the boats and their reflection in the“ evening on the Volga ”river, the figures of people indicated by the dark silhouettes against the backdrop of the silver water surface“ in the Caspian ”, this line was continued in the future of Alexei Tkachev. Among its early sketches, the Cartin belongs to the “shepherd” with the precisely conveyed swift movement of the horse in the foreground.

Not only the found motive, but the picturesque texture itself, where it is easy to trace each touch of the brush, is the compositional basis of the work. The tradition of a sketch-picture is firmly connected with the history of the national picturesque school. It originates in the works of V. Serov, K. Korovin, individual works of I. The principles of epi -reed painting became determining in the work of members of the Union of Russian Artists association, and later found a new embodiment in the works of A.

Plastov, S. Gerasimov, A. The work of outstanding masters set the guidelines for the young generation, which entered the artistic scene in the post -war period. Based on tradition, they were looking for their path in art and the Tkachev brothers. This period includes a number of wonderful works. Among them are portraits shown at the exhibition, created as sketches for future genre compositions: “Zina at the window” by Alexei Tkachev, “Tamara Agapov” by Sergey Tkachev.

With the common approach to them, the differences in the manners of the writing are clearly visible: the wide and free, built on the finest nuances of color with the general restraint of the palette, at the first, and the intensified with a rich coloristic development of the second. Not only sketches were written with a free brush, but also many paintings by the Tkachev brothers of those years, for example, “Wind Day”, timing, “laundresses”, and the Kiev Museum of Russian Art.

A living plea approach, transferred to a large -scale picture form, has become a new word in the art of the post -war period. Among the undoubted successes of Alexei Tkachev belongs to the composition “from the party” small in format, with a simple, seemingly plot, it is light and virtuoso in execution. By quick and accurate touches of the brush - abruptly, then, on the contrary, long - a drawing of a wooden bridge, leading a look into the depths, to the figures of a guy and a girl who moves away from the viewer, is planned.

The plot of the picture, written during the period of work at the Academic Cottage under the Veshny Volochk, has a certain connection with the biography of its author. Aleksey Petrovich - then a young artist - met dancing with a girl from these places, who became a faithful companion of his life. So Tkachevs, who came to the “academic cottage” for several years, settled in its environs.

It was here, on the Tver land, that almost most of their key works were created. At the end of X - beginning X, fame was brought to the Tkachev brothers, in which the tasks of a large picture were solved - significant in shape and content. After a long break, the audience again has the opportunity to see at the exhibition a large -scale composition “Between the battles” - the first work of the weaver, which included in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery.

The birth of the picture was greatly facilitated by the stories of the father of artists. In the first years of Soviet power, he headed a rural club, where performances were staged and classes were organized to eliminate illiteracy. And this scene, when behind a school desk is not children, but adult men-Army men, gained all the new features during the preliminary work.