Russian artist Vera Andreevna Orekhova lived a long difficult life. Despite this, all her works are saturated with light, calm and optimism. The creative credo of Vera Orekhova is "art should bring joy to people." The artist, in her youth, set a goal: to live up to a hundred years. Thanks to her stubborn and cheerful character, she managed to achieve this goal: she died 9 days after her 100th birthday.
Childhood
Verochka Orekhova was born in the Black Sea city of Odessa on June 19, 1907. Her father, Andrei Ksenofontovich Orekhov, was originally from Murom, where his ancestors were famous icon painters, he graduated with honors from Kazan University, and was fluent in six foreign languages. Vera’s mother is the black-haired beauty Maria Panayioti, who arrived in Odessa from Greece with her parents: a commercial businessman from Athens and an Italian mother.
Vera's parents got married in 1905, in 1906 they had a daughter, Elena, in 1907, Vera, and later their sons Vladimir and Georges.
Maria Vasilievna was engaged in farming and raising children, and Andrei Ksenofontovich worked, and as a result of his service, he was forced to move from place to place. So in 1910, the family ended up in the Baltic states, and in 1914, in Petrograd, where little Vera entered the gymnasium. In 1918, the Orekhovs moved to Moscow, where they remained for permanent residence. All four children began to attend a gymnasium on Znamenka Street.
The beginning of professional activity
Faith from childhood beautifully painted. After graduating from high school in 1924, she decided to get a vocational education and went to study at the technical school of artisanal industry, where her teachers were the great Apollinariy Mikhailovich Vasnetsov and Dmitry Anfimovich Shcherbinovsky. And two years later, Vera Orekhova entered the so-called VKHUTEMAS (VKHUTEIN) - Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops (Higher Artistic and Technical Institute), at the theater department of the painting department. The teaching staff was outstanding: the painting was conducted by Pyotr Petrovich Konchalovsky, theater art - Isaak Moiseevich Rabinovich, the history of the theater and direction - Vasily Grigorievich Sakhnovsky. And the practice of Vera Orekhova took place at the Moscow Art Theater, in the school-studio of which she even acted as an actress, but then she decided to devote herself to painting.
Student Orekhova was a cheerful and cheerful girl, the soul of a youth company. She was even expelled from the university for some time, but the teachers defended a talented and extraordinary artist. In 1930, Vera Orekhova graduated from VKHUTEMAS, and, together with her fellow graduates, got a job at the design bureau of the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Rest. The bureau was involved in the organization and decoration of popular then mass events: parades, processions, carnivals, fairs and holidays. There was a lot of work, as well as the enthusiasm of young artists.
In 1931, Orekhova joined the AHR (Association of Russian Artists), and in 1932 - at MOSSH (Moscow Union of Soviet Artists), in which she worked for many years.
Personal life and creativity
In the early 30s, Vera Orekhova met her future husband - artist Valerian Turetsky. They married on January 1, 1931 - right on New Year's Eve. Three years later, on July 2, 1934, the couple had a daughter, Marina, who also later became an artist. Vera Andreevna combined motherhood with creative activity, the nanny Frosya helped the spouses to raise a daughter.
An important milestone in the creative biography of Vera Orekhova was the work in 1937 at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition as an artist-designer. And in the summer months, the artist, along with a "group of colleagues in the shop" went to work in the Crimea, "to write in the open air"; at the same time, the husband Valerian Turetsky preferred to write sketches on the Volga in the summer, and let his wife go with his daughter and nanny Frosy to the Black Sea in Sudak. Vera Andreevna fell in love with this place with all her heart - most of its landscapes are Crimean.
The hardships of the war years
When the Great Patriotic War began, Vera Andreevna with her daughter and nanny were in the Crimea. Urgently returned to Moscow, where the bombing was already underway. They spent several nights in the subway, while her husband was on duty on the roofs of houses and extinguished incendiary bombs. In July 1941, sending his wife, daughter and nanny to evacuate to Tashkent, Valerian Grigoryevich Turetsky went to the front as a volunteer. And on April 13, 1942, he died in battles near the city of Vyazma, Smolensk region.
Vera Andreevna, like many thousands of women of that time, received a "funeral". By that time, living in Tashkent, the artist suffered illnesses and hunger. Nanny Frosya got a job as a truck driver, and helped Vera and Marina as much as she could. Later, Vera Orekhova found a job as a stage designer at the Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theater. Here, I had to paint with a brush two meters long, covering with images of canvas the size of 600 square meters.
Having received news of her husband’s death, Vera decided to return to Moscow. Arriving at the end of 1943, she discovered that there was nowhere to live: some general had settled in the apartment, her husband’s workshop was also busy, all things and paintings were gone. For several months, the artist and her daughter lived with friends, and then they were given a room in a communal apartment. Then they were relocated several times to other apartments, and only in 1964 the mother and daughter finally moved to their own apartment in house No. 5 on Maslovka Street.
Returning from the evacuation, Vera lost not only her belongings and apartment, but also her work. To somehow feed herself, she began to look for a tailor: she sewed clothes for wives and children of familiar artists. The artist was then experiencing a severe creative crisis - she could not paint her kind and bright paintings.
Post-war years
Since 1946, Vera Orekhova’s trips to the Crimea resumed: at first she was awarded a trip for arranging an exhibition at the Aviation Institute; then, in 1947, she received an order through the Union of Artists to restore the interiors of the House of Creativity of Konstantin Korovin in the city of Gurzuf. And then Orekhova got a job at the All-Union Pioneer Camp "Artek", where she taught children to draw, made out all kinds of stands, holidays of pioneer bonfires, etc. Gradually, the artist again began to paint her paintings - Crimean landscapes.
In the early 1950s, Orekhova again appeared at the All-Union Exhibition - now VDNH. Here she worked as the chief artist of the pavilion "House of Culture". And in the fall of 1954, she presented several of her Crimean works to the Council of the Combine of Graphic Art at the Moscow Artists Union (Moscow Union of Artists). Her watercolors were approved, and the artist was invited to work in a workshop of unique graphics. Here Orekhova painted new watercolors, and in parallel studied the art of prints. Then she became one of the organizers of artists' bus trips around Moscow with the aim of painting landscapes, and she herself created many wonderful watercolor sketches of Moscow "from the bus window." Such creative trips continued until 1989.
In 1964, Vera Orekhova went on a cruise on the ship "Estonia" to the Mediterranean countries. According to the results of the impressions of the trip, the paintings "Naples", "Istanbul", "Africa" and others appeared. The artist’s style has changed: the paintings have become more saturated with light and space.
Working in Moscow Artists Union and going to the open air in the summer, Vera Orekhova created a large number of bright and sincere pictures. The main genres of her work were landscape, still life and portrait. Her work is very harmonious in color, proportions, sometimes it seems that flowers and fruits in her still lifes exude aroma. The paintings of Vera Orekhova sold very well, and in order to increase the demand for them, the artist wrote in different formats: horizontal, vertical, square - who liked and demanded the most in the conditions of this or that interior.
