Aleksey Khramov, life and work

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

I would like to start the article about the artist with the fact that he was born in the Urals. And this place and the people living there are not so much harsh as serious, hardworking and beautiful. This is what is revealed to us in the paintings of Alexei Vasilyevich. The paintings of Alexei Khramov, as it were, slowly lead the tale of the Ural Mountains, which appear in the artist’s works either as a blue background, or as rocks or huge boulders creep into the foreground. And the Urals is also famous for its dark green coniferous forests with flowering meadows, its streams and rivers, meandering and gleaming between the banks, overgrown with grass and flowers that sparkle with gems in emerald grass…

Artist biography

In 1909, in the city of Belebey, near Ufa, in the family of the merchant Vasily Khramov and the daughter of the famous Ufa merchant Mikhail Andreevich Stepanov-Zorin, Praskovya Stepanova, a son was born, they named him Alexei. But times were hard: fatherthe artist, Vasily Khramov, was shot, his mother, Praskovya Mikhailovna, was left alone with four children in her arms. This woman raised and nurtured them all.

In 1930, Alexei Khramov graduated from the art department of the Art College in Ufa. He paints a lot with oil on canvas. But in those days, only children of workers and peasants were accepted to study at universities. More than one fate was shattered by this decision of the government. So the artist Aleksey Vasilyevich Khramov, who, by his parents, was of merchant origin, could not enter and study at the Academy of Arts, as he wanted. Moreover, he was forbidden to sell paintings. Aleksey Khramov earned pennies, and the family living in Ufa (the artist, his wife and two sons) had to subsist on more than a modest salary, which was brought into the house by his wife, who worked as a teacher. But Alexei Vasilyevich did not give up painting, he was actively engaged in social work.

He took a lively part in organizing the youth section of the Ufa "Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia" in 1928, participated in the creation of a partnership of Bashkir artists in 1932, created the Bashkir branch of the Union of Artists of Russia, opened in 1937, was also a member of the board of this Union since 1937 and in the post-war period.

War in the life of an artist

The war in the life of Alexei Khramov came unexpectedly, turning all plans upside down. He went through it all. From 1941 to 1945. Participated in battles on the front line and in the defense of Leningrad, in the battles near Stalingrad, crossed the Dnieper, fell into enemy encirclement, stormed Koenigsberg. Aleksey Vasilyevich returned home onlyafter the victory over militaristic Japan. And the artist began to paint again. He got to the front no longer a boy, so he managed to survive, but the war brought to his canvases a sense of fragility and insecurity of harmony and peace, without violating the brightness and color richness of the palette.

In encyclopedias in the photo, Alexei Khramov appears as a chased, stern soldier of the Great Patriotic War, whose military merits are marked with the Order of the Red Star and military medals.

Post-war activities

Most of the paintings made by the artist after the war are landscapes, but there are also successful portraits, still lifes and genre paintings. In 1974, Alexey Vasilievich received the title of Honored Artist of the BASSR. His works are exhibited at art exhibitions in the USSR and abroad.

But soldiers who have gone through the whole war, having wounds, contusions and undermined he alth, do not live long. In Ufa, on November 14, 1978, the artist died.

Artistic features of Alexei Khramov's works

All the artist's works are flooded with sun, regardless of the time of year and day. Even in the rain, he has a roll call of bright green and red colors, shades of yellow shine. Even the sunset is warm, light and soft red. A large number of works by the artist Alexei Khramov are made as if with ribbons, and the perspective is conveyed by their imposition. The brightness of the colors is muted by the blurring of the outline. On one of the canvases, the artist's favorite river Dema is orange, as it reflects the autumn harvest of coastal grasses, bushes, trees.

There is one morefeature of the work: a large number of roads, not highways, not primed, but broken by wheels, ruffled by rain, uneven and long, long. This is a tribute to the memory of the war, the endless, maddening front-line roads, which the artist has seen a lot during the five war years. Only this memory of the fronts of the Patriotic War let Aleksey Vasilievich into his canvases, all the other horrors and hardships of battles remained in his heart.

Portrait of Salavat Yulaev

The work "Salavat Yulaev on horseback" (1959) is distinguished by an unconventional look at the leader of the rebellious Bashkirs, who joined Pugachev's Yaik Cossacks, although they were supposed to pacify the rebellion. The portrait does not depict a giant hero, not a majestic khan on a magnificent horse. An ordinary short rider, a simple horse. But what is the position of the rider worth! Confidence in the whole figure, in a foot in a stirrup, shod in a boot. Salavat's view is also good. This is a look into yourself, into the future. This is the look of a smart and kind person, which was Salavat Yulaev.

And Salavat was also an improvisational poet, his songs about battles with enemies, about the nature of the Urals and about love were passed from mouth to mouth for a long time, sung by sesens. Aleksey Khramov knew about this, he knew about the ardent love of ordinary people for his hero and was not afraid to take up the portrait. And he did.

Artist's son

One of the artist's sons, Pyotr Alekseevich Khramov (1939 - 1995), was well known as a muralist. His reliefs, murals and numerous mosaics can be seen in the public buildings of Ufa and the cities of the republic:Salavat, Blagoveshchensk and others.

In addition, Petr Alekseevich is known as the author of the repeatedly reprinted novel "Monk".

Artist's Legacy

The main judges of the artist's works are the audience. The artist Aleksey Vasilievich Khramov has long been dead, and his works continue to excite, interest and delight. They have incorruptible sincerity, honesty and boundless love for the native nature of the Urals and its people. Artists find that in Khramov's works there is both philosophy and theology, they combine the spiritual and the social. That is why exhibitions of his paintings are regularly held in the cities of his native Urals. Personal exhibition of Alexei Khramov in Moscow was held in 2003 and was a success.

The man had no students. None of the modern masters consider themselves a follower of Alexei Khramov, the artist. Many modern creators prefer to deliberately complicate and decorate canvases, work with photographs, each one creates in his own original manner, which has no points of contact with the soulful and somewhere laconic paintings of the master, which are not distinguished by either expression or unusual colors. But the gaze of an attentive viewer opens up the wonderful world of the artist Khramov, fragile, sensitive, correct and harmonious.