Brusilovsky, Misha Shaevich

Childhood

Born in Kiev . Father - Shaya Shevelevich Brusilovsky ( 1904 - 1943 ) - a military engineer , died in the war ; mother - Frida Abramovna Goldberg ( 1906 - 1989 ) - a trade employee; Sev's brother - Vsevolod Shaevich Brusilovsky (born 1936), a scientist in the field of electrical radio engineering ^[1] .

In 1938, his father was sent on a long trip to the Far East , where he went with his whole family. They lived at Ying station, in Birakan and Birobidzhan ^[1] . In early 1941, the Brusilovsky family returned to Kiev, and in June the war began . Misha and brother Seva were sent to the South Urals in the city of Troitsk ^[2] with their father’s sister, Aunt Raya, the father went to the front, and his mother stayed in Kiev and arrived later. In 1943, Aunt Paradise, a therapist and surgeon , was mobilized , and Misha rode with her on a medical train ^[2] . On the ambulance train, Misha Brusilovsky helped doctors and the wounded, and during long stops he went to nearby villages to change their salt for food ^{[2] [3]} .

Six months later, the family returned to Kiev freed from the Germans. In search of work, he joined a group of boys who were involved in shoe shining on the forecourt. Every evening, an adult guy named Kot ^[2] came to the square, associated with local criminals, and took most of the proceeds. Concealment of incomes was harshly suppressed ^[4] .
Once, on Kota’s birthday, Misha painted his portrait with colored pencils and showed it to him. The cat took a drawing for himself, and after a while took Brusilovsky to a boarding school for gifted children ^[2] .

In 1944, he began classes in a Kiev boarding school for gifted children.

Learning

He studied at the boarding school for gifted children for one year. In 1945 he entered the Kiev Art School. T. G. Shevchenko , located at that time in the building of the Kiev Art Institute . He graduated from an art school in 1952 and submitted documents to the Kiev Art Institute, but was not accepted, since admission was strictly regulated on a national basis ^[4] . He began to earn by writing copies of paintings by famous Soviet artists for cultural palaces and other state institutions ^[4] .

In 1953 he moved to Moscow . He worked as a graphic designer at VDNH ^[2] but, deciding to continue his education, he went to Leningrad and entered the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I. E. Repin at the Faculty of Graphics. He studied with such future artists as Ostap Shrub ^[5] and Minas Avetisyan . The institute graduated in 1959 (the head of the thesis was A. F. Pakhomov ) and was assigned to the city of Sverdlovsk by distribution ^[6] .

Creativity

Sverdlovsk

In Sverdlovsk, he began to teach drawing at the Art College. I.D. Shadra , as well as collaborate with the Central Ural Book Publishing House as an illustrator . He met with Vitaly Volovich , German Metelev ^[7] , Andrey Antonov ^[8] , Anatoly Kalashnikov ^[9] and other artists of Sverdlovsk, and also met with the artist Gennady Mosin ^[10] , whom he had made friends with at the institute. Repin. Together with Mosin he took up easel paintings. He also took orders for monumental works ^[11] .
Chairman of the Sverdlovsk Union of Artists A. G. Vyaznikov, who launched a large-scale struggle against formalism in the name of his career ^[12] . and some officials of the Sverdlovsk regional party committee negatively took Brusilovsky’s work.
In 1961, on the occasion of Brusilovsky’s thirtieth birthday, the Sverdlovsk Union of Artists organized an exhibition of paintings and graphics at the Sverdlovsk House of Artists, combined with the exhibition of another Sverdlovsk artist K. Zyumbilov.
On May 10, 1961 , the newspaper “Ural Worker” , under the heading “Replica of the Spectator” , publishes an article entitled “Unnecessary idea” , signed by a certain “employee N. Efimov” ^[13] , in which all Brusilovsky’s works presented at exhibition.

The painting "1918"

In 1962, in collaboration with Gennady Mosin, he began work on the painting "1918." The decision to paint a picture was a challenge to the first secretary of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR Vladimir Serov , who was engaged in historical and revolutionary painting and specialized in the depiction of Lenin ^[14] .

In 1963, a sketch of the painting was presented to the artistic council of the exhibition committee for the preparation of the art exhibition "Socialist Urals" ^[16] . The artistic council approved the sketch, and an agreement was signed with the artists to create it. When the picture was almost ready, Mosin and Brusilovsky rolled up the canvas and wrote another version ^[16] , portraying Lenin as a decisive person and capable of everything to achieve his goals ^[17] . Upon learning that the artists depicted Lenin not as quiet and modest as Serov himself ^[14] , as well as other artists of that time, V. Serov tried to do everything to forbid the painting in the process of its creation.
The promotion of the picture was helped by E.F. Belashova , secretary of the Union of Artists of the USSR, which used the picture in the fight against Serov ^[12] .

The painting “1918” was exhibited at major exhibitions in Moscow ^[16] , was awarded a special diploma of the Ministry of Defense ^[14] , and was reproduced in the magazines “ Creativity ” ( 1965 and 1967 ), “ Twinkle ” (1967), “ Art ” (1967) , 1969 ), the albums “Art Born by the October Revolution” (1967) and “These Days Won't Fade Glory” ( 1968 ) ^[16] , represented Soviet art at the international exhibition of the Biennale in Venice in 1966 and in 1967 at the exhibition of young artists in Berlin ( GDR ) ^[17] . The painting became a recognized part of the official Leninian ^[16] and brought Gennady Mosin and Misha Brusilovsky all-Union fame ^[18] . The cameraman Boris Shapiro for the film magazine "Soviet Urals" was filmed a movie about the creators of the picture ^[19] .
Currently, the picture is in the Volgograd Museum of Fine Arts ^[16] . The first version of the painting was completed by Misha Brusilovsky in the late 80s and transferred to the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts ^[16] . A sketch of the painting, made in 1963, is in the Perm State Art Gallery ^[16] .

All-Union fame did not change the attitude towards Brusilovsky on the part of officials of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the party, who included the artist’s name in the “black” lists of formalists ^[20] , and relations with the publishing house ended with the fact that he was officially forbidden to work ^[11] .

Free Creativity

Having lost his job in publishing and becoming free from the situation ^[21] , he worked a lot in his workshop, which becomes a place of pilgrimage for artists ^[21] .
In his works, he turns to the theme of war ( “General” and “Garcia Lorca” ), to mythological subjects ( “Leda” , “Leda and the Swan” , “Venus in the Grotto” and “The Abduction of Europe” ), paints pictures based on folk fairy tales ( “The Golden Cockerel” , “Little Red Riding Hood and the Gray Wolf” ), as well as such paintings as “Ball Game” , “Lena's Dance” , “Masks (City)” , “Once Upon a Time in Sverdlovsk” , “Gagarin Yu. A . ” And many others.

In 1968 he was elected a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR ^[22] .

In 1969, in collaboration with Gennady Mosin, he painted the painting “Red Commanders of the Civil War in the Urals,” depicting Blucher , Frunze , Chapaev and other red commanders of the Civil War in the Urals ^[10] . The painting was presented at the 3rd zonal art exhibition "Socialist Urals" in Chelyabinsk and caused a lot of controversy, since the style of the painting was not related to socialist realism ^[23] .

In 1972, he completed work on the painting "Arkady Raikin Theater" , which was recognized as anti-Soviet. For the purchase of a painting for the Sverdlovsk House of Art Workers, the artistic director of DRI Tatyana Nabrosova, the future wife of Misha Brusilovsky, called in the KGB for an interview ^[24] .

In 1976, he joined the creative team of artists of the Ural Machine-Building Plant, consisting of 28 painters , graphic artists and sculptors ^[25] .

In 1977, he commissioned a painting “Group portrait of a team of UZTM blacksmiths (B. Shulepov, K. Le, A. Kordukov - foreman, A. Moskvin, V. Venchinov, I. Bersenev, V. Yerer)” , which was included in the retrospective the album "Artists and Uralmash" in 1983 ^[25] .

In 1984, he created the painting "State Farm Golubovsky" ( "Pig Farm on the State Farm Golubovsky" ), which caused another scandal.

Boris Yeltsin , who was then the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional party committee, publicly called the painting harmful to Soviet fine art ^[13] .

Paris: G. Basmadjian Gallery

With the advent of perestroika , democratic changes began in the Soviet Union , and party bodies stopped interfering in the creative process of artists, writers, and other artists . The attitude towards the work of Misha Brusilovskrgo also changed, and in 1986 the “ban on Brusilovsky” was lifted ^[27] .

In 1989, he received an offer to make an exhibition in France from the French collector and gallery owner Garik (Garig) Basmadzhyan ^[28] . In April 1989, Misha Brusilovsky arrived in Paris ^[29] . The exhibition was scheduled for November, but before that there was work to prepare canvases that arrived in France rolled up, as well as a number of representative events ^[29] . For the exhibition’s advertising campaign, the painting “Aggression” ( 1975 ) was chosen, which Garik Basmadzhyan considered the most expressive and memorable ^[30] . A reproduction of the painting was placed on the cover of the exhibition catalog, as well as on advertising posters ^[30] .

A retrospective exhibition in the gallery of G. Basmadzhyan, which presented fifty works of Brusilovsky ^[29] , was held from November 18, 1989 to January 18, 1990 . The exhibition was a huge success, and the French press mentioned the name of Brusilovsky along with the names of such artists from Russia as Ilya Kabakov , Eric Bulatov and Vladimir Yankilevsky ^[30] .

Garik Basmadzhyan was not present at the opening of the exhibition, since on July 24, 1989 he visited the USSR at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture , and on July 29, 1989 disappeared without a trace in Moscow . His disappearance is considered one of the most mysterious crimes of perestroika Russia ^[31] .
In connection with the disappearance of Garik Basmadzhyan, the gallery suspended joint projects with Misha Brusilovsky, and he returned to Russia, leaving most of his work in Paris.

90s

In 1990 , together with Anatoly Kalashnikov, Brusilovsky received a private order for the manufacture of eleven paintings, 1.5 x 2 meters, in the style of interior painting ^[32] . When the work was completed, the customer unexpectedly went abroad, refusing to take the paintings and allowing the artists to dispose of the paintings at their discretion ^[33] . Misha Brusilovsky kept the paintings for many years in his studio, and only in 2013 they were presented at the exposition to the general public ^[34] .

In 1991, he was awarded the G. S. Mosin Prize ^[35] , for his contribution to the development of artistic creativity in the Urals.

In 1992, he visited the United States of America . He lived in the cities of Columbus and New York ^[36] . In New York, he visited his old Ural friends, the poetess Bella Abramovna Dizhur and her son Ernst the Unknown . He also met with the painter Anatoly Kalashnikov, who came to New York from Sverdlovsk ^[36] . But Misha Brusilovsky devoted his main time to work, and during the year he created about a hundred paintings ^[37] .

After living in America for one year, he decides to return to Sverdlovsk ^[37] .

Trips to France and the United States influenced the peculiarities of the artist’s picturesque style and color ^[38] , and he begins to rewrite his favorite stories ^[39] again.

В 1993 году в Москве , в редакции журнала « Наше наследие » , состоялась персональная выставка Миши Брусиловского, на которой были представлены работы, выполненные в новой живописной манере ^[39] .

В период с 1993 года и по 1997 год , он также создает ряд миниатюрных произведений для галереи «Автограф» ^[40] , которые создаёт по законам абстрактного искусства ^[41] . К ним относятся такие работы как «Абстракция» , «Композиция» , «Опус N2» , «Опус N3» , «Предметы» , «Шесть предметов» , «Дом» , «Окно» , «Порт» , «Пейзаж» , «Пейзаж ночью» , «Покой» , «Воспоминание» , «Прощание» и «Голгофа» ^[41] .

В 1999 году в Свердловской государственной филармонии состоялась выставка живописи Миши Брусиловского «Библейские сюжеты» . На выставке были представлены картины, входящие в собрание Евгения Ройзмана ^[42] .

Recognition

В 2001 году состоялась персональная выставка картин Миши Брусиловского в галерее «Маноле» ( Айн-Ход , Израиль ) ^[43] , передвижная выставка «Русское искусство. 300 лет» ( Пекин , Шанхай . Гонконг , Китай ) и персональная выставка в Екатеринбургскком музее изобразительных искусств ^[22] .

В том же 2002 году ему была присуждена премия губернатора Свердловской области «За выдающиеся достижения в области литературы и искусства » ^[44] .

В 2003 году галерея-салон «Золотой скорпион» в ряду постоянных экспозиций «Ноев ковчег» представила совместную выставку Миши Брусиловского и скульптора Андрея Антонова ^[45] .

В 2004 году Брусиловский принимает участие в экспозиции «Несение Креста» , организованную Екатеринбургским музеем изобразительных искусств ^[46] .

В 2008 году в центральном Лондоне проходит выставка живописи Миши Брусиловского в рамках проекта «Арт-7» ^[47] .

В 2009 году Миша Брусиловский принимает участие в выставке современного американского и российского искусства «Контакт ветра и огня» , организованной при поддержке Отдела Печати и Культуры Генерального консульства США в Екатеринбурге ^[48] , общественного фонда «Екатеринбургский творческий союз деятелей культуры» и «Екатеринбургской галереи современного искусства» ^[49] . В экспозиции были представлены работы известных американских и уральских художников ^[50] .

28 апреля 2009 года состоялась премьера документального фильма Светланы Абакумовой «Воскресенье в мастерской» ^[51] ( Студия FSS, арт-движение Старик Букашкин. Студия Телесинема ) ^[52] . Фильм посвящён жизни и творчеству Миши Брусиловского.

В 2010 году художественная галерея «Арт-Словарь» открывает постоянную экспозицию «Корифеи уральского искусства» , в которую вошли такие произведения Брусиловского, как «Самсон и Далила» , «Леда и Лебедь» , «Похищение сабинянок» и «Освенцим» ^[53] .

9 июня 2011 года в Доме кино Екатеринбурга прошла премьера документального фильма Бориса Шапиро «Миша и его друзья» , снятого на студии «Бо-Ша-фильм» ^[53] . Фильм рассказывает о жизни и творчестве Миши Брусиловского.

16 сентября 2011 года Екатеринбургский музей изобразительных искусств открыл ретроспективную выставку, посвящённую 80-летнему юбилею Миши Брусиловского ^[54] .

22 ноября 2011 года указом Президента Российской Федерации Мише Брусиловскому присвоено звание Заслуженного художника Российской Федерации ^[55] .

28 ноября 2013 года Мише Брусиловскому была вручена мантия Почётного члена Российской академии художеств ^{[56] [57]} .

1 июня 2016 года Миша Брусиловский удостоен звания Почётного гражданина Свердловской области ^[58] .

Произведения Миши Брусиловского находятся в Екатеринбургском музее изобразительных искусств , Пермской государственной художественной галерее , Екатеринбургской галерее современного искусства , Челябинской областной картинной галерее, Оренбургском областном музее изобразительных искусств, Ирбитском государственном музее изобразительных искусств , а также в частных коллекциях России , Австрии , Англии , Германии , Израиля , Ирландии , США ^[59] , Франции и Швейцарии ^[60] .

Картины, оставленные Мишей Брусиловским во Франции и США , периодически продаются на крупнейших аукционах мира . В 2006 году на аукционе Сотбис в Лондоне картина «Игра в мяч» (Футбол) была продана за 108 тысяч английских фунтов ^[61] .

По данным издания «The Art Newspaper Russia» , в 2014 году Миша Брусиловский занял 38 место среди 50-ти самых дорогих ныне живущих российских художников ^[62] .

3 ноября 2016 года Миша Брусиловский скончался на 86-м году жизни ^[63] . Похоронен на Широкореченском кладбище Екатеринбурга.