Original oil painting by Soviet social realism artist Yuri L. Frolov.
The piece measures 34.5" x 46.5" overall.
Fitted with D-ring hardware and is ready to hang in its new home.
Closed corner, gilded frame handcrafted by Richard Tobey.
This painting comes from our collection of original Soviet-era oil paintings.
The history of Russian Impressionist painting is the tale of an extraordinary movement in the art of the twentieth century. The concept of "Soviet Social Realism," a.k.a. Russian impressionism, emphasized the social role of art; it insisted on the superiority of content over form and required a wholesale return to traditional skills, regarding history and European art from the Renaissance as a living source of inspiration.
In the ensuing years, artists struggled between their duty to reflect the ideals of the State and developing their own stylistic repertoire as party leaders demanded that art should be "understood" by the average person. Somehow, Russian artists managed to perform a delicate balancing act between the requirements of "accepted" working class art by painting poetic scenes in which the worker, farmer, or monumental Russian industry are the primary subjects.
With the death of Stalin in 1953, the darker academic pallet began to lighten and the need to conform to rigid subjects eased. This was the beginning of what is known as the "Severe Style" of Social Realism. The fall of the Soviet Empire took with it the last of the social realist art form. By 1990, all that was left of Russian Impressionism was a body of work created in the five previous decades by a few masters and their progeny.
About Yuri Frolov:
Yuri Leonidovich Frolov was born in Vvedenovka, Ryazan region, Russia in 1925. He studied at the Moscow Intermediate Art School from 1939 to 1944 and then at the famous Surikov Art Institute until 1950. The Surikov is the premier art school in Moscow and one of the top three schools in Russia. He actively worked in Moscow and began exhibiting in 1950. Frolov's important art shows include the 'All-Union Art Exhibition' in 1950, 1951, and 1955. These shows were juried and and were extremely rigorous in the criteria for participation. Frolov specialized in everyday life genre paintings, scenes of life in Chukotka, and composition portraits. He was awarded many prizes for his input in the development of Russian and Soviet art.
