News



Klever Julius Yulevich

Image7?sha=1c5867e4

31.01.1850 – 24.12.1924

Julius Yulevich Klever (at the birth of Julius) came from the German Baltic clan von Klever; his father was a master of chemistry and taught at the Veterinary Institute in Dorpat.

Since childhood, Julius has been inclined to drawing and in 1867, after graduating from the Derpt Gymnasium, he began to study in the architectural classes of the Imperial Academy of Arts, but soon moved to the landscape class – he studied with SM. Vorobyov, then – at M.K. Klodt.

In 1874, at the stands of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, the artist organized his personal exhibition. In 1875 for the painting “Running Park” Julius Klever received a prize from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and in 1876 – for the painting “The First Snow on a Plowed Field”. After the second solo exhibition in 1876 his painting “Birch Forest” wished to acquire Alexander II. Julia Klever was awarded the title of class artist of the first degree, and in 1878 for the painting “Old Park” (“View of the neglected park in Marienburg”) he received the title of academician of painting.

Klever did not strive for the accuracy of the image and freely sacrificed it for the sake of expressiveness of the picture as a whole. He willingly wrote autumn and winter with their harsh and sharp decorative effects. Unlike landscape painters of his epoch (except AI Kuindzhi), he appreciated the expressiveness of the underlined spot, silhouette, contour: they often played a big role in his paintings. Contemporaries Klever, his admirers, argued that the artist writes a new, bold, original, and his works are forced to love the fatherland more strongly.

And in the 1890s, events took place, as a result of which J. Klever left for Germany: he was attracted as a witness to the high-profile case of financial abuse of his friend, former conference secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts P.F. Iseyeva.

In Germany, J. Klever lived for seven years. After returning to his homeland in 1915, Julius Yulievich arranged an exhibition in Moscow, made creative trips to the Baltic states, Finland, Belarus, Smolensk province. However, despite the change in the world outlook, Klever remained true to himself. The artist retained his “original clover” handwriting, for which his works were bought, collected, published in newspapers and magazines, on postcards, and for which his works were forged. Klever’s “effects” gave the artist a bright personality, originality and recognition.

After the revolution of 1917 Yu.Yu. Klever received material support from the Society of Artists. A.I. Kuindzhi. Until the end of his life he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts and at the Central School of Technical Drawing. Optimism, love of life helped Yulia Yulievich to live to a very old age. He philosophically perceived the turbulent Russian events, he remembered the past days with a smile.

The artist’s works are kept in the State Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Serpukhov Historical and Art Museum, the museums of Barnaul, Vladimir, Volgograd, Kaluga, Kozmodemyansk, Kostroma, Krasnodar, Lipetsk, Veliky Novgorod, Sevastopol, Semey, Serpukhov, Stavropol, Syktyvkar, Tambov, Ulyanovsk, Alma-Ata, Yerevan; in private collections.

Image: Yu.Yu. Klever. Snow in the forest. 1885 (from the collection of VNKhM named after INKramskoy).

Yu.Yu. Clover
river spill
1890
© VOKhM im. I.N. Kramskoy
Yu.Yu. Clover
Snow in the forest
1885
© VOKhM im. I.N. Kramskoy