Izmalkov, Alexey Matveevich

Alexei Matveevich Izmalkov (1905 - 1968) - the main artist of the Navy of the USSR, a famous Soviet sculptor.

Alexey Matveevich Izmalkov
Date of Birth
Place of Birth	Izmalkovo village Russian empire
Date of death
Place of death
A country
Style	realism
Ranks	chief artist of the Navy of the USSR

Born July 6, 1905 in the village. Izmalkovo (now the district center of the Lipetsk region) in the family of a potter. The godfather of the future sculptor was the famous writer I. A. Bunin . From childhood, he showed great ability to pottery, enrolling in a rural pottery school.

With the outbreak of civil war at the age of fourteen, he voluntarily enters the ranks of the Red Army. The young Red Army man takes part in battles with the white Cossacks of Denikin , Wrangel, with gangs of Basmachi.

In the fall of 1923, Izmalkov was sent to study in Orel, to command infantry and machine gun courses. They learned about the abilities of a nineteen-year-old cadet, and he becomes a permanent artist of wall newspapers. Sometimes he managed to engage in modeling. His dream is to become a sculptor. After completing the courses, in September 1924, Izmalkov received a referral to Moscow, to the graphic department of the A.V. Lunacharsky art school of arts. At this time, the future sculptor met several times with V. Mayakovsky , S. Yesenin , N. Obukhova , and visited many major artists, artists, and writers.

After graduating from the rabfak, Izmalkov continued his studies in Leningrad, while the Academy of Fine Arts then practiced business trips of artist brigades to military units and to frontier posts, to industrial enterprises and to collective farms. The images of the heroes of the revolution subsequently become one of the main themes in his work. Izmalkov creates a large number of sculptural portraits of the faithful sons of the motherland. In different cities you can see his work. Among them are portraits of Dzerzhinsky , Frunze , Voroshilov , Budyonny , Chapaev , Schors , Parkhomenko , Kotovsky , Dundich , Zheleznyakov and many others.

In the early days of World War II, Alexei Matveevich voluntarily went to the front. Officer Izmalkov - as part of the existing fleet in the Arctic, then he is sent to the Black Sea. In 1942, he was appointed chief artist of the People's Commissariat of the Navy of the USSR. During the war, Izmalkov creates several sculptural portraits of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

One of the sculptor's main works is a monument to 68 paratroopers KF Olshansky in the city of Nikolaev.

In the postwar years A.M. Izmalkov captured in bronze, granite, gypsum many famous heroes - Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov , North Sea pilot twice Hero of the Soviet Union B.F.Safonov , Hero of the Soviet Union N.A. Ostryakova , admirals F.S. Oktyabrsky , S.G. Gorshkov and others. In several sculptural portraits and compositions, Izmalkov recreated the image of the great leader of the revolution V.I. Lenin . The Leninist monuments he created were installed on the streets and squares of Moscow, Ivanovo, Yalta, Ashkhabad, Kustanai.

Izmalkov A.M. died in September 1968. He was buried in the 28th section of the Vvedensky cemetery in Moscow.

A memorial plaque with a bas-relief portrait of a prominent Soviet sculptor is installed on house No. 6/8 on Staropansky Lane in Moscow. The inscription on it reads: "The sculptor Alexei Matveevich Izmalkov, a participant in the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars, worked in this house from 1931 to 1968."

One of the streets of the city of Nikolaev is named after A. Izmalkov.