Konchalovsky Pyotr

Pyotr Konchalovsky was one of the key figures of the XX-century Russian painting. He was born in 1876 in Slavianka, Kharkov gubernia (currently Ukraine). In 1896 — 1898 he studied at the Académy Julian, Paris. In 1899 he returned to Russia and entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, Saint Petersburg, where he specialised in military painting, graduating in 1907. In 1909 he co-founded the Jack of Diamonds group (with Ilya Mashkov, Mikhail Larionov and Aristarkh Lentoulov) whose main inspiration were Cezánne and primitivism. After the October Revolution, Konchalovsky departed from the postimpressionist style due to restrictions of the new Socialist realism canon (his most famous works of that period include portraits of Pushkin, Lermontov and Prokofiev). He died in 1956.

In 1916 the Tretjakov Gallery had acquired Konchalovsky’s painting A Portrait of Natalya Petrovna Konchalovskaya. In 2010 a big retrospective of Konvhalovsky’s paintings was held in the same venue. His works are in collections of the State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg; the Petr Konchalovsky’s Foundation; and many private collections, including that of painter’s family (film directors Andrey Konchalovsky and Nikita MIkhalkov).