Ufimtsev, Victor Ivanovich

Omsk period

Born in the village of Barnevka (now in the Kurgan region) in a peasant family. In early childhood he lived in Tobolsk, then in Tara , where his father was exiled for participation in the First Russian Revolution ^[2] . In 1908, after moving his family to Omsk, he entered a commercial school.

Since 1917 he studied at the courses of drawing and painting at the Omsk working institute of practical knowledge, which was taught by A. N. Klementyev . In 1919, after attending the evening of the “father of Russian futurism”, poet and artist David Burliuk, he accepted the ideas of futurism and discontinued classes with Klementyev, since he, being a follower of the “Miriskusnikov” , reacted negatively to the futurists ^[3] .

Since 1920, he worked as an artist in the Omsk club of the Red Army. He was a member of the artists section at the RABIS union (1920). In 1921, took part in sailing along the Ob and Irtysh on the “International III” campaign ship, visited Barnaul, Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk) and Tomsk, where he actively communicated with local artists, exchanged works with them and visited museums (in particular, the art museum of Barnaul , whose collection contained more than two dozen works of avant-garde artists of the first magnitude) ^[4] .

In 1921, he became one of the organizers and leader of the futuristic creative group Chervona Troika (1921-1923), which in addition to artists ( N. A. Mamontov , B. S. Shabl-Tabulevich and others) included the poet L. N. Martynov and composer V. Ya. Shebalin . The group organized four art exhibitions, about one of which the artist V. Ye. Kamenev wrote this: “... It opened, attracted the curious and closed. There was an attempt to provoke a dispute, but something did not come out dynamic, not bold and not even spectacular, but creaky, like an unoiled cart drawn by lazy and slightly rugged bulls ... ” ^[5] .

In 1923 he traveled to Moscow, where he met with V.V. Mayakovsky and V.E. Meyerhold . In the same year, together with N. A. Mamontov, he went to Central Asia, where he worked in the Samarkand Commission for the Protection of Antiquities and Art. The local nature and culture made a strong impression on the artist and had a great influence on his work. In 1924, he took part in an expedition to study the architectural monuments of Bukhara, led by M. Ya. Ginzburg , one of the leaders of constructivists ^[6] .

Since 1925, he again lived in Omsk, but in subsequent years he repeatedly returned to Central Asia and traveled to the Soviet Union (Caucasus, Siberia, Far East). For some time he worked as the main artist in the Omsk city theater . In 1926-1931 he was a member of the New Siberia Society of Artists. In 1926, an exhibition of the artist under the name Turkestan ^[7] was held in the West Siberian Regional Museum . In 1931, during his next trip to Central Asia, he created a series of gouaches “Turksib”, recognized by art critics as one of the peaks of his work ^[8] .

Central Asian period

He taught at the Tashkent Art College. One of the founders of the historical and revolutionary genre in Uzbekistan. The artist's works are in many regional museums.

The artist’s archive is kept at the Vrubel Museum of Fine Arts (Omsk) ^[9] .

• Eremenko T.V. Early painting by V. Ufimtsev and N. Mamontov in the collection of the Omsk state. Museum of History and Local Lore // Izvestia OGIK Museum. 1997. No 5. S.
• Devyatyarova, Irina Grigoryevna. Art life of Omsk in the XIX-first quarter of the XX century / I. G. Devyatyarov; Chap. control culture and art administration Ohm. reg. Ohm. reg. museum fig. Arts them. M.A. Vrubel. - Omsk: Leo, 2000

• Bibliography on the site Last century