Memorial museum-workshop of Konenkov. Sculptor S. Konenkov: creativity

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

The Konenkov Museum (sculptor) is located in Moscow, at the address: st. Tverskaya, 17. In this article, you will learn about what you can see today in this building. We are also interested in everything related to such a famous person as S. Konenkov: the memorial museum-workshop, the work of the sculptor and his biography.

Church of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica

The building that houses the Konenkov Memorial Museum is an object of cultural heritage of our country, a monument of culture and history. This place was formerly the church of St. Dmitry Solunsky. This temple was founded in 1625 and was rebuilt in the Empire style at the beginning of the 19th century. He set the architectural appearance of the entire Strastnaya Square, which today is called Pushkinskaya. In the 1920s, the well-known literary cafe Pegasus Stall was located next to the church, which was visited by the Imagists. A. Mariengof, S. Yesenin, N. Klyuev, A. Duncan, A. Tairov and others often came here.

Residential complexon the site of the church

The church was demolished in 1934. In 1939-1941. in its place, a residential building was built according to the project of A. G. Mordvinov, a famous architect. He is also the author of a number of buildings located on Tverskaya. The massive walls of the building are made of light brick. The facade was decorated with balconies, intricate reliefs, oriental-type turrets and bay windows. A statue of a ballerina crowned the corner tower. Its author is the sculptor Motovilov. Due to poor preservation, at the end of 1950, it was decided to dismantle the statue.

What is the house designed by Mordvinov famous for?

The house is interesting, apart from its architectural features, and the famous people who lived in it. At various times, its inhabitants were A. B. Goldenweiser, a musician whose apartment is today a branch of the Museum. Glinka, M. I. Gudkov, aircraft designer, G. I. Gorin, satirist and playwright.

Until 1950, the monument to A. S. Pushkin was located at the beginning of Tverskoy Boulevard. It was created by A. M. Opekushin, a famous sculptor, in 1880. Sergei Timofeevich liked this monument. I was very glad that I could see him from the windows of the studio, and the sculptor Konenkov.

Museum-workshop, now located on the site of a residential building, has its own history. Let's talk about how it was created.

Creating a museum

On Tverskaya street, in the house number 17, from 1947 to 1971 lived Konenkov Sergey Timofeevich. After his death, a government decree was issued, according to which it was decided to create a memorial museum in the studio apartment where Konenkov (sculptor) lived and worked. Academy of Arts of the USSR andThe Ministry of Culture carried out work on the formation of its collection, exposition. By the 100th anniversary of the sculptor, in 1974, this museum was opened. The work of the sculptor S. Konenkov is presented in it as fully as possible.

What is the Konenkov Museum?

It includes a workshop room, as well as a memorial part: an office, living rooms located on the second floor, a living room and a hall. It was possible to preserve to this day all the features of the interior, which was made according to Konenkov's personal project. To date, the exposition presented here is the most significant and largest collection of works by this master. It represents most fully all the stages of his creative biography. An extensive library, manuscripts of books and articles, Konenkov's notebooks, a fund of photographs, which include images of the master's works left in the USA, are of great value.

Museum today cooperates with galleries and exhibition halls of the country. Within its walls there are exhibitions of works not only by Konenkov himself, but also by his students, as well as works by young artists and sculptors.

Lobby

Konenkov's famous plaster self-portrait (1954) is located in the lobby. He was awarded the Lenin Prize. Also here is one of the most poetic and sophisticated female images - a portrait of the sculptor's wife, Margarita Konenkova, created in 1918 from wood. The lobby features original craftsman-made furniture made from roots and stumps.(armchairs "Boa constrictor", "Owl", "Swan", etc.), in which images and forms are borrowed from nature. One of the most interesting sights of the collection is this unique set.

Workshop room

The main exposition is located in the workshop. Here are the early works related to the student period: "Stonebreaker" (1897), "Reading Tatar" (1893), works of the "Silver Age", in particular, works included in the treasury of sculpture of our country. This is, for example, "Bach" - the pearl of the museum that interests us, a work in which the author has risen to a monumental synthetic image, extraordinary in its power of generalization; several compositions on the theme of "Samson", "Paganini".

"Forest series" and portraits of women

The famous "Forest Series" arouses the constant interest of many visitors to this museum. The work of the sculptor S. Konenkov reveals the national Russian character and demonstrates his high skill in woodworking. This series includes such works as the relief "Feast" (1910), "We are Elninsk" (1942), "Forest Man" (1909), "Old Old Man" (1909), as well as the work "Bacchus" created in 1916 with malachite eyes. It is worth noting that the tree was not only the material for fabulous and fantastic images in the work of Konenkov. Sculptor, masterfullyusing the plastic properties of this material, in 1918 he created a portrait of M. I. Konenkova, full of charm, as well as the harmoniously perfect figure of a woman "Magnolia" in 1934.

Portraits of contemporaries

Sergey Timofeevich for a long creative life created an excellent gallery of portraits of various of his contemporaries, outstanding figures of science and culture, in which his unique gift was manifested to subtly feel the spiritual we alth and character of a person, her individuality. Among them are the psychological portraits of Albert Einstein, Ivan Pavlov, Charles Gilder, Sergei Rachmaninov, Nadezhda Plevitskaya, Nikolai Feshin, Maxim Gorky, as well as the famous portraits of this writer’s granddaughter, Peshkova Marfa Maksimovna, and Ninochka, her daughter - works that are characterized by we alth emotional nuances. They are all full of inner peace and purity.

In 1935, Sergei Konenkov, a sculptor no doubt talented, created a portrait of Albert Einstein. It is considered to this day one of the most successful images of this great scientist. The portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky, executed in 1933, is considered the pinnacle of Konenkov's work. In it, the master managed to convey the whole complex range of various emotional states and create an image full of inner psychologism and tragedy.

Religious themes in Konenkov's work

In the work of Konenkov in the late 1920syears, completely new plastic and plot motifs appear - the sculptor turns to religious themes. The gospel cycle is a comprehensive and the only complete expression of Konenkov's religious searches in sculpture. The museum presents the following works: the "Prophet" made of plaster in 1928, "John" and "Jacob" made of terracotta in 1928, as well as images of Christ in plaster and wood.

Konenkov's latest works

The sculptor in the last years of his life was fond of, above all, plastic experiments. He made attempts to combine different types of art, which were expressed in the synthesis of painting and sculpture, the desire to combine the latter with sound and movement. All this is embodied in "Cosmos", a musical sculptural instrument that can be considered one of the first installations in Russian art from the 1950s.

Konenkov until the end of his life remained a bold experimenter and innovator in art, a man of the broadest erudition, a thinker who deeply experienced the events of that time. Therefore, we can say that it was not without reason that he called his final work "My Age".

Short biography of Konenkov

So, we have described the Konenkov Museum. This sculptor was born in 1874, on June 28, in the village of Karakovichi (today it is located in the Smolensk region, Elninsk district). Below is his portrait by Pavel Korin.

By nationality he is Belarusian, he grew up in a peasant family. Konenkov studied at MUZHVZ, after which - atProfessor Beklemishev in St. Petersburg, at the Higher Art School. His thesis ("Samson Breaking the Bonds") was considered too revolutionary and destroyed by order of the Academy of Arts.

In 1897 the sculptor Konenkov made trips to Germany, Italy and France. His biography at this time is marked by the fact that he performed at the end of the 19th century with the "Stonebreaker", a realistic sculpture. Konenkov was caught in Moscow by the revolutionary events of 1905. Under their impression, he creates a series of portraits of participants in the clashes on Presnya. Also in 1905, he designed the Filippov cafe, located on Tverskaya, and in 1910 created the bas-relief "Feast".

The sculptor Konenkov, whose works we are interested in, visited Egypt and Greece in 1912. At this time, he worked on the "Forest Series". Wood is widely used in it, various methods of its processing are presented. The forest for Konenkov is a symbol of beauty, the embodiment of the elemental forces of nature. The sculptor uses the methods of folk carving, creatively rethinks the images of ancient legends in his works. In parallel with this cycle, he is also working on "Greek" ("Horus" and "Young Man").

This sculptor was one of the first Russian masters of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries who depicted a naked female body. Often his works are sustained in the traditions of wooden carving, folk Russian art. Note here "Caryatid (1918)," Firebird "(1915)," Winged "(1913).

Konenkov supported the October Revolution, participated in the implementation of the plan of the so-called monumental propaganda. He created, in particular, the monument "Stepan Razin" for Red Square.

Konenkov married Margarita Ivanovna Vorontsova in 1922 and went to the USA. Here the couple lived for 22 years (mostly in New York). This period of his work includes works related to reflections on the themes of the "Apocalypse", the Bible. These are drawings depicting apostles, prophets, Christ, as well as sketches for cosmogonies.

Sergei Konenkov was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

So, we examined the memorial museum and the work of the sculptor S. Konenkov. Today his works are known not only in our country, but all over the world.