Художественная культура (Jun 2023)
The Artist and His Circle. Russian Emigre Artist Eugene Klimoff
Abstract
The article is devoted to the artist of the Russian emigre artistic circle Eugene E. Klimoff (1901–1990). A committed realist, as a painter and graphic artist, Klimoff worked in the field of landscape and portrait. The artist’s creative heritage includes many portraits of representatives of Russian artistic emigre circles, cultural and scientific figures, as well as landscapes of those places in which he happened to live during his life. These landscapes are autobiographical and belong to the category of historical evidence, acquiring special value after a hundred of years. A significant part of the landscapes is executed in the technique of lithography, and the attention of this article is focused on them. At the same time, the landscapes by Klimoff are analysed not only from the point of view of a modern art critic but also from that of his contemporaries. This perspective became possible due to Klimoff’s extensive correspondence with many famous Russian artists in exile, including Alexandre Benois, Zinaida Serebryakova, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and others. Klimoff’s activities in various fields of art pursued a specific goal — the promotion of Russian art in its entirety in those cities and countries where he happened to stay. He became one of the founders of the cultural and educational society “Akropol” in Latvia, and in 1932 became its executive secretary; in 1940, he headed the Russian Department at the Riga Art Museum. In different countries of the world, Klimoff painted churches and restored church murals; he also gave public lectures on ancient Russian icon painting, subsequently expanding a variety of lecture topics and including Russian fine art of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including the work of his Russian contemporaries. At the same time, Klimoff’s activities as an educator began to spread in another direction — towards homeland, for which he carefully preserved not only his and his circle artists’ works but also memories of them in a form of correspondence with famous Russian culture and art personalities.
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