Alexandr Shilov | |
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Александр Шилов | |
.jpg) Shilov in 2013 | |
| Born | (1943-10-06)6 October 1943 (age 82) |
| Occupation | Portrait painter |
Alexander Maxovich Shilov (Russian:Александр Максович Шилов; born 6 October 1943) is a prominentSoviet andRussianportrait painter.
Shilov was born in Moscow.
Between 1968 and 1973, he studied at theSurikov Moscow Art Institute. In 1976 he became a member of theUnion of Artists of the USSR. In 1985 he becamePeople's Artist of the USSR. In 1992 one of theasteroids (4164 Shilov discovered byLyudmila Ivanovna Chernykh) was named after him. In 1996 he donated to the Russian Government 365 portraits painted by him. Since 2001 he is a full member ofRussian Academy of Arts
In March 2014 he signed a letter in support of the position of the President of RussiaVladimir Putin onRussia's military intervention in Ukraine.[1]
The speciality of Alexander Shilov are ceremonial portraits, often painted from photographs without even seeing his subjects. He painted more than 600 of them. Hailed in his youth as the great champion ofSocialist Realism and patronized by Kremlin rulers, he painted portraits of all the leaders of the Soviet Union and Russia includingLeonid Brezhnev,Yuri Andropov,Konstantin Chernenko,Mikhail Gorbachev,Boris Yeltsin,Vladimir Putin, most ofCosmonauts, etc. He also produced portraits of his daughter Mashenka, his mother and grandmother.
Shilov's opponents insisted that his portraits are little more than the flattering photographs transferred onto canvas, but his proponents claim a unique realistic style directly inherited fromDmitry Levitzky andOrest Kiprensky. In 1997 one of the leading proponents, theMoscow mayorYuriy Luzhkov, opened theMoscow State Art Gallery of People's Artist of the USSR Alexander Shilov, just several steps away from theMoscow Kremlin. The gallery is devoted solely to exhibitions of Shilov's work.
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