Where the Motherland is, there were painted by the artist Alexei Alekseevich Bolshakov. His favorite topic was, as he said, "winter." A significant place in his work, in addition to paintings on the village, was occupied by military subjects. Although fate gave him 92 years of hard life, he did not grumble, but always with love created what he wanted on the canvases.
Biographical Information
Alexey Alekseevich Bolshakov was born in 1922 in Petrograd. Drew since 4 years. The fine arts in their home were respected. He studied at an art school at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. Back in school years, the teenager was awarded the second prize at the exhibition. A. Bolshakov graduated from one course of the Institute of Painting. At the beginning of the war he was sent to the front. After the battle, he, shell-shocked, was found in a funnel. He ended the battle path in Germany. Has rewards.
After the war, A. Bolshakov worked as an artist in the Lithuanian theater. Having moved with his future wife to Velikiye Luki, he worked in creative workshops. He painted in the homeland of the wife of Anna Guryevna - in Runovo, and in the village of Harino-Bor, where they lived recently.
Bolshakov "winter"
Most of Bolshakov’s paintings are dedicated to the Pskov province. The artist most of all liked to paint winter landscapes or, as he said, "winter". Here they are pictures of a provincial heartland. Country house in winter dusk, where the light is on. Hay in the autumn in the meadows, powdered with snow. Village huts littered with snow, next to which there are hung doormats. Old little rickety bathhouse on the river bank in winter. Village cares - a horse with a sleigh gets to the heaps littered with snow. Powdered forest road in late autumn. The village well is littered with snow. Nearby are two women. Nearby are rocker arms, on which buckets of water are carried. The huts are swept by snow. Open gate. In front of the house in winter poultry walks. A church on the banks of the river and scattered snow-covered houses. The names of his paintings: “Powdered with Snow”, “Winter Symphony”, “Morning in Runovo”, “Behind the Hay”, “Dam in Danger”, “Loose Coast” and others - indicate that he had rural nature and life roads and awakened his creative thought.
Unforgettable theme
A significant place in the work of the former war veteran is occupied by the theme of war. On the canvases “Undermining the Savkinsky Bridge”, “The Defeat of the Germans under Pitfalls”, “At the Bunker”, events of that terrible time are depicted. For work "Forgotten" A. Bolshakova tried to accuse of high treason. On the canvas is the field where the battle took place. Behind a machine gun in a camouflage coat - a decaying corpse of a soldier. The soldier was never buried.
Works A.A. Bolshakova filled with deep spirituality. In them he, as it were, invites us to think about what has been experienced, about the earth, about the people living and living on it.
The Bolshakov family
The artist’s wife, Anna Guryevna, is a strong, strong-willed woman. He always felt her support. When he went to Staraya Ladoga to write studies, his wife tried twice to come there, but there were no tickets. However, she still got there … skiing. Once there was a fire - the archive and the workshop burned down. Alexey Alekseevich admitted that he began to live from scratch three times. First - during the war, then - in Velikiye Luki, the last - in the village of Harino-Bor.
The Bolshakov family experienced a severe shock - the death of his son, who became a ceramic artist and has already gained fame, and two grandchildren. Their adopted daughter Lyudmila Potkina has always been a support for parents.
When they ask Aleksei Alekseevich what was not in his life, he replies that there was everything. Despite the difficult fate, A. Bolshakov remained a simple, upright and friendly person.
Bright memory
One of the early works is the post-war still life "Mushrooms". The latest picture "Without words
"was written in 2014 and is dedicated to the memory of his wife: a woman leaves on a sleigh at winter twilight.
On the building of the art school in Velikiye Luki, which bears the name of A. Bolshakov, a memorial plaque is opened. This educational institution became his second home.
