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Shchukin Yuri Prokopyevich

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11.01.1904 – 06.10.1935
Yuri Prokopyevich Shchukin is a Russian artist, neo-primitivist painter, theater artist, designer. Member of the Association of Artists of the Revolution.

Was born in the city of Voronezh. As a child, he was fond of making theatrical dolls from papier-mâché. He studied at the Voronezh gymnasium, at the unified labor school, then at the Voronezh Free Art Workshops (teachers: S.M. Romanovich, N.Kh. Maksimov). He studied in the circle of the Voronezh Department of Public Education “Young Creativity”.

From 1922 to 1930 he studied at the Vkhutemas-Vhutein at the theater and decoration faculty, where his teachers were: P.P. Konchalovsky, I.M. Rabinovich, V.G. Sakhnovsky. In 1928, Shchukin with a group of students was in the Far East, traveled through Buryatia and Mongolia. In 1929 he took part for the first time in the large exhibition of the Academy of Arts “Art to the Masses”.

After graduation, he lived and worked in Moscow, was engaged in set design, together with his wife A.S. Magidson participated in the design of urban visual agitation, demonstrations and theatrical processions dedicated to the celebration of revolutionary dates and events.

Since 1929, Yuri Shchukin has been a participant in exhibitions, a member of the Association of Artists of the Revolution. He is the author of two theoretical and practical books: “Designing the City in the Days of Revolutionary Festivals” (together with A.D. Kuznetsova and A.S. Magidson) and “Designing Mass Performances and Manifestations” (with A.S. Magidson).

In 1930-1931. Drafted into the Red Army, Yuri Shchukin was involved in the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army (OKDVA), where he designed the Sakhalin Regiment club, drew cartoons for the army’s large circulation and organized the Krasnoarmeisky Petrushka propaganda theater. In his army luggage, he took away a huge number of sketches, drawings and watercolors.

Yu.P. Shchukin is one of the most distinctive representatives of pre-war modernism, the so-called Pleiades of artists of the 1920s – 1930s, close to E.F. Ermilova-Platova and S. Ya. Adlivankin. Yuri Shchukin’s work is very close to primitivism with pronounced elements of folk and popular prints. Yuri Prokopyevich is the author of neo-primitivist decorative landscapes, still lifes and urban scenes imbued with fantastic motives. The author of the paintings: “Circus” (1926), “Theater Curtain” (1928), “Old Moscow” (1932), “Attraction” (1933), “Airship over the city” (1933), “Skating rink” (1933), ” Bouquet “(1934) and other works. Some of Yuri Shchukin’s works, despite the decorative presentation, are of a dramatic expressive character: “Former. On the flea market “(1932),” Old Voronezh “(1933),” Water holiday “(1933).

The artist died at the age of 31, in Moscow, and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Pictures by Yu.P. Shchukin are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, State Russian Museum, Voronezh Regional Art Museum named after I. N. Kramskoy, Nukus Museum of Fine Arts named after I.V. Savitsky and in private collections.

After the artist’s death in 1938, a personal exhibition was held in the exhibition hall of the Moscow Regional Union of Soviet Artists, more than seventy paintings and graphic sheets by Yuri Prokopyevich Shchukin were shown, in 1966 – the second posthumous exhibition in the Central House of Writers (Moscow).

Yu.P. Schukin
Rink
1933
© VOKhM im. I.N. Kramskoy