Axelrod, Meer Moiseevich

Born in the Belarusian city ​​of Molodechno, Vilno province , went to a traditional cheder . At the beginning of World War I, the family, after the tsarist government had evicted residents from the frontline, moved to Tambov ; in 1918 he made an attempt to return to Molodechno, but the city turned out to be abroad - in Poland. ^[1] . Since 1918 he lived in Minsk , made a living by advertising posters for cinemas, he graduated from a real school. In 1919 - 1920 he served as a draftsman of the Communications Department of the Red Army.

In the 1920s, he studied at VKHUTEMAS . Then he taught at VKhUTEIN (Higher Artistic and Technical Institute) and the Textile Institute ( 1928 - 1932 ). He was a member of the society " 4 art ", joined the Moscow Union of Artists in 1932 . In 1930 - 1931, he twice visited the agricultural community “Voio Novo” (named in Esperanto ), founded by the Jews who returned from Palestine . Observations and sketches in the commune had a strong influence on the artist’s future work. Beginning in 1931, he came along with many well-known artists under a campaign to combat formalism , although as early as 1934 his paintings were exhibited in France . It was condemned in Soviet newspapers for pessimism, sketchiness, deformation, incompleteness, expressionism and even proximity to Modigliani . I was forced to go to the illustration of books and work in the theater. In particular, he worked in the Belarusian GOSET (State Jewish Theater), sometimes in the Moscow GOSET .

In 1941, the Axelrod family was evacuated to Tambov , where the Axelrod family was also during the First World War . Meer Axelrod himself remained in Moscow, trying to find out about the fate of his arrested brother, the poet Zelik Axelrod , and awaiting conscription. Soon after the mobilization, he was recalled by Sergei Eisenstein to work in the film crew of the film " Ivan the Terrible " in Alma-Ata , on the way there he took the family from Tambov. He was evacuated to Alma-Ata in 1941-1943 , where he supported Jewish refugees from Poland. In 1944, a personal exhibition of Axelrod was held in Alma-Ata.

After the war, he participated in a group exhibition in Moscow on the Kuznetsk bridge in 1966, about 250 paintings were exhibited there. After the exhibition, I immediately ended up in the hospital because of my heart. In 1968, a personal exhibition was held in ( Rostov-on-Don ). Axelrod died of an unrecognized heart attack in 1970, and did not see the catalog of his personal exhibition that had not been published. The artist is buried in the old, Jewish part of the Vostryakovsky cemetery in Moscow .

Personal exhibitions: 1972 (Moscow, posthumously), 1973 (Leningrad, posthumous), 1982 (Moscow, posthumously). Posthumous exhibitions in the 1990s. and 2000s in Moscow, New York, London, Germany, Israel.

Many of M. Axelrod’s paintings are dedicated to stories from the life of Russian Jews, the “Ghetto” series ( 1968 - 1969 ), the series “In the Steppe” - on the impressions of a trip to the agricultural Jewish commune in Crimea in 1930 - 1931 . The author of a series of paintings “Memoirs of Old Minsk”. Elena Axelrod , the daughter of the artist, published in Jerusalem an album-monograph of the artist ( 1993 ) and in Moscow the book of memoirs and letters “The Yard on Barrikadnaya” ( 2008 ). ^[2] Poet Arseny Tarkovsky highly appreciated the work of Axelrod: “ This is a great example of how beneficial it is to be honest and pure person ... You can clearly see what wonderful fruits it brings, how expensive it is to do people of this kind who are truly holy obstinacy, with iron will break through all obstacles . " ^[3]

The works of Meyer Axelrod are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery , the Russian Museum , the Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin .

His brother, the poet Zelik Axelrod , was shot in 1941 at the age of 37. Zelik introduced Meyer to a fan of his work, the Jewish writer Rivka Rubina , who became Meyer's wife. Their daughter is the poet Elena Axelrod , their grandson is the artist Mikhail Yakhilevich . The artist often portrayed his loved ones in the paintings: his wife, daughter, brother and even grandson.

2014

Meir Axelrod (1902-1970). Nude , Gallery Open Club , Moscow

• Elena Akselrod, tr. Amanda Calvert. Meer Akselrod. - Jerus.-Moscow: Mesilot, 1993 .-- 248 p. - ISBN 965-222-514-2 .
• Georgy Fedorov. Meer Akselrod. - Moscow: Sovetskij khudozhnik, 1982. - 134 p.
• Yu. Gerchuk. General notebook. Three generations of the Axelrod family. (T. 1: Meer Axelrod. Graphics. Zelik Axelrod. Poems. T. 2: Mikhail Yakhilevich. Painting. Elena Axelrod. Poems.) . - Jerus.-Moscow: 2W-publishing, Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin, 2006 .-- ISBN 9659027524 . (inaccessible link)
• Elena Axelrod. Yard on Barrikadnaya . - M .: New Literary Review, 2008. - T. 1. - 552 p. - ISBN 978-5-86793-596-2 . (inaccessible link)
• General notebook. Three generations of the Axelrod family . - M .: Bridges of Culture / Gesharim, 2006. - T. 1. - 242 p. - ISBN 9659027524 . (inaccessible link)
• Safonov S.A. , Chuvilin I.A. Axelrod Meer Moiseevich // Encyclopedia of the Russian avant-garde : Fine Art. Architecture / Compiled by V. I. Rakitin , A. D. Sarabyanov ; Scientific editor A.D. Sarabyanov. - M .: RA, Global Expert & Service Team, 2013. - T. I: Biographies. AK . - S. 13 . - ISBN 978-5-902801-10-8 .
• Vladimir Sterligov. About Meer Axelrod. / Sixteen Fridays: Second Wave of the Leningrad Vanguard / Edition prepared by Elena Spitsyna. // Experiment / Experiment: Journal of Russian culture. / - LA, USA. - 2010. - No. 16. In 2 hours. T. 1, pp. 295-296

• Site dedicated to Meer Axelrod
• A web gallery of Akselrod's paintings
• https://web.archive.org/web/20090426090620/http://www.mjcc.ru/Galereia_MEOC/Akselrod_Meer/index.html
• Artist Meer Axelrod, his daughter and grandson, Mirra Aspiz
• Meer Axelrod. Ark Gallery
• Jewish.ru The modest charm of Meer Axelrod (inaccessible link)
• Axelrod Meir - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
• ARTIST MEIR AKSELROD , Grigory Ostrovsky, art critic