Biography of Kovalenko

The calendar of the memorable and significant dates of the south of Russia Fedor Akimovich Kovalenko Fedor Kovalenko - a Russian collector, the founder of the art gallery in the city of Yekaterinodar - was born on May 16 in the town of Workshin Poltava province in a large peasant family. At the end of the two -year school, in the year the Kovalenko family moved to Yekaterinodar.

Father gave a summer boy to the grocery store of the merchant Pyatkov with the Disorders. In this store, Fedor rose to the cashier. And on the salary of the cashier began to acquire books, paintings, engravings, coins, archaeological finds, realizing their spiritual interests in collecting.

Fedor Kovalenko possessed painting abilities and innate artistic taste. The older brothers Fedor, who did not have artistic inclinations, but being “with a commercial vein”, rich in trade. Photographer I. Sumovsky, year. By the year, the private collection of Fedor Kovalenko has grown to such sizes that its owner considered it possible to arrange the first exhibition at home. Therefore, some researchers call the year of the birth of the art museum for the year.

By the year, the collection was no longer placed in the apartment. And Fyodor Kovalenko addressed the Catherinodar Duma, telling the officials that he intends to “give the city his collection with the condition that a good room would be allocated for her. The poor philanthropist asked the city authorities to also provide him with the opportunity to replenish the collection, name the museum with his name and receive a small income from the gallery: Fyodor Kovalenko was going to spend this money on scholarships for gifted artists.

” The city Duma unanimously voted for the adoption of the gift of the collector of works of art and agreed to its conditions. The Duma even sacrificed its convenience, deciding to hold meetings in another place, and now, on April 11, the Ekaterinodar art gallery opened in the building of the city council on Krasnaya Street, becoming the first public meeting of paintings in the North Caucasus.

Accepting the gift of Fedor Kovalenko, the authorities did not have an excess of funds for the arrangement of the gallery. However, it was decided to find rubles "for the acquisition of furniture for the collection of paintings by Kovalenko, belonging to this expense in the estimate of next year." In the year, Fedor Akimovich opened a public library at the gallery, began the publication of catalogs and booklets; The literary and archaeological departments appeared.

In the year, there was a need to transfer the gallery into another, more spacious room. And in the year the gallery was located on the second floor of the house of engineer Batyrbek Shardanov. Previously, these premises were occupied by retail stores. The Kabardian nobleman Batyrbek Shardanov, a graduate of the Pererbug Institute of Railways, worked on the construction of Russian railways, was a member of many charitable societies.

And having discovered the talent of the architect, he designed and built one of the most beautiful buildings of Yekaterinodar in the year. The mansion of Shardanov and became for many years the main building of the gallery of Fyodor Kovalenko, and later - the Art Museum. It should be noted for the lease of the authorities a year that later the city allocated almost rubles for the maintenance of the gallery.

In the year, the Yekaterinodar art circle was formed at the gallery with the aim of spreading painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, drawing and applied arts among the population of the North Caucasus and the Black Sea coast. ” Fyodor Akimovich, who was the director, guardian, minister and all other galleries, the city authorities awarded the title of “Honorary Lifue Tower of the Gallery”.

In the year, thanks to the efforts of Fedor Kovalenko, a school of painting and drawing was opened in Yekaterinodar, later transformed into an art school. And a year later, the authorities of Yekaterinodar, impressed by Fyodor Kovalenko, impressed by the tireless ascetic work of Fyodor, appointed him a salary. The collector established ties with the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Ilya Repin, Vasily Polenov and other eminent artists transferred their works as a gift to Yekaterinodar art. Fedor Akimovich signed with the Italian artist Giuseppe Parrini and ordered him copies of Rafael's works, Sebastiano Del Piombo. From St. Petersburg from the owners of art shops A. Trenty and R. Auer came catalogs, according to which the collector chose and acquired paintings of Russian and Western European artists.

Fyodor Kovalenko was a full member of the Kuban Regional Statistical Committee, the Yekaterinodar Society of Elegant Arts, an honorary member of the Society of the Arts of Kyiv, participated in exhibitions and congresses of the intelligentsia in St. Petersburg and Kyiv; He was a member of the jury of many events held in Yekaterinodar: photo exhibitions, drawings of drawings after the revolution, Fedor Akimovich achieved from the new authorities decisions that protected the gallery from searches and confiscation.

In the year, Fyodor Kovalenko became the chairman of the commission on the organization of the Museum of Revolution, raised the issue of creating a literary museum in the city.In the conditions of the Civil War, he prepared the next exhibition, but on February 9, he died of typhoid in the next few years, the art gallery belonged to the Kuban-Black Sea Regional Museum, and in the year a new inscription appeared over the front entrance of the Batyrbek Shardanov mansion: “The Kuban Soviet Art Museum”; The conscientious power appropriated the name of his hero to the museum - the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, criticism and art critic Anatoly Lunacharsky.

And only on April 19, the name of its founder - Fedor Kovalenko was returned to the Krasnodar Regional Art Museum. A memorial plaque with the bas -relief of Fedor Akimovich was installed on the facade of the museum building, the work of the Kuban sculptor Alexander Apollonov. The museum halls opened in the building, standing next to the “House of Engineer Batyrbek Shardanov”, an architectural monument of the late 19th century - in the building of the former “Yekaterinodar Office of the State Bank”, the architectural monument of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In addition, the exhibition areas are “supplemented by virtual space using sensory panels and the interactive book of the Museum of Museum. Pages of History.” Over more than a hundred years of existence, the fund of the Krasnodar Regional Arts Museum amounted to about 13 works of painting, graphics, sculpture and decorative art. The collection of Russian art is presented from the main schools of icon painting: Novgorod, Moscow, northern to creative searches of the 10ths of the XX century.