Memorial museum-workshop of Konenkov. Sculptor S. Konenkov: creativity

The Konenkov Museum (sculptor) is located in Moscow, at: ul. Tverskaya, 17. In this article you will learn about what can be seen today in this building. We are also interested in everything related to such a famous person as S. Konenkov: memorial museum-workshop, sculptor's work and his biography.

Church of St. Dmitry Solunsky

The building where the Konenkov Memorial Museum is located is an object of the cultural heritage of our country, a monument of culture and history. At this point the Church of St. Dmitry Solunsky. In 1625, this temple was founded and was rebuilt in Empire style at the beginning of the XIX century. He asked the architectural appearance of the entire Passion Square, which is called today Pushkin. Near the church was in the 1920s a famous literary cafe Stoil Pegasus, which was visited by the Imagists. Often A. Mariengof, S. Yesenin, N. Klyuev, A. Duncan, A. Tairov, and others visited this place.

Residential complex on the site of the church

The church was dismantled in 1934. In the years 1939-1941. In its place built a house on the project AG. Mordvinov, the famous architect. He is also the author of a number of buildings located on Tverskaya Street. A light brick made massive walls of the building. The facade was decorated with balconies, intricate reliefs, turrets of the eastern type and bay windows. The statue of the ballerina was crowned by a corner tower. Its author is the sculptor Motovilov. Because of poor preservation in the late 1950s, it was decided to dismantle the statue.

What is famous for the house designed by Mordvinov?

The house is interesting, except for architectural features, and famous people who lived in it. At various times its inhabitants were A.B. Goldenweiser, musician, whose apartment is today a branch of the Museum. Glinka, M.I. Gudkov, aircraft designer, G.I. Gorin, a satirist and a playwright.

Until 1950, the monument to A.S. Pushkin was at the beginning of Tverskoy Boulevard. It was created by A.M. Opekushin, the famous sculptor, in 1880. This monument was liked by Sergei Timofeevich. I was very glad to see him from the windows of the workshop, and sculptor Konenkov.

The museum-workshop, located now on the site of an apartment house, has its own history. Let's talk about how it was created.

Creating a museum

On Tverskaya Street, in the house number 17, from 1947 to 1971 lived Konenkov Sergey Timofeevich. After his death, a government decree was issued, according to which it was decided to create a workshop in the apartment where Konenkov (sculptor) lived and worked, a memorial museum. The Academy of Arts of the USSR and the Ministry of Culture carried out work on the formation of its collection, exposition. To the centenary of the sculptor, in 1974, this museum was opened. The work of the sculptor S. Konenkov is presented in it as completely as possible.

What is the Konenkov Museum?

It includes a workshop room, as well as a memorial part: a study, living rooms, a living room and a lounge on the second floor. It was possible to keep up to today all the interior features, which was executed on the personal project of Konenkov. For today the exposition presented here is the most significant and large collection of works of this master. She represents most fully all the stages of his creative biography. Great value has an extensive library, manuscripts of books and articles, notebooks Konenkov, a fund of photographs, which include an image of the master's works remaining in the US.

The museum now cooperates with galleries and exhibition halls of the country. Within its walls there are exhibitions of works not only of Konenkov himself, but also of his students, as well as works of young artists and sculptors.

Lobby

The famous self-portrait of Konenkov, made of gypsum (1954), is located in the lobby. He was awarded the Lenin Prize. Also here is one of the most poetic and refined female images - a portrait of the sculptor's wife, Margarita Konenkova, created in 1918 from wood. In the lobby there is presented the original furniture of the master's work, made of roots and stumps (the chairs "Udav", "Owl", "Swan", etc.), in which images and forms are borrowed from nature. One of the most interesting attractions of the collection is this unique suite.

Workshop room

The main exposition is located in the workshop. Here are the early works relating to the student period: The Stoneboy (1897), The Reading Tatar (1893), the works of the Silver Age, in particular, works that are included in the treasury of the sculpture of our country. This, for example, "Bach" - the pearl of the museum of interest to us, a work in which the author rose to a monumental synthetic image, an extraordinary generalization force; Several compositions on the theme "Samson", "Paganini".

"Forest series" and women's portraits

The famous "Forest series" evokes constant interest of many visitors of this museum. The work of the sculptor S. Konenkov reveals the national Russian character and demonstrates its high craftsmanship in the processing of wood. This series includes such works as relief "Feast" (1910), "We are Elninsky" (1942), "Lesovik" (1909), "The Old Man" (1909), as well as the work "Bacchus With malachite eyes. " It is worth noting that the tree was not only a material for fabulous and fantastic images in Konenkov's work. The sculptor, masterfully using the plastic properties of this material, created in 1918 a portrait of M.I. Konenkovoy, full of charm, as well as harmoniously perfect figure of the woman "Magnolia" in 1934.

Portraits of contemporaries

Sergei Timofeevich for a long creative life has created a beautiful gallery of portraits of various of his contemporaries, outstanding figures of science and culture, in which his unique gift to feel the features of spiritual wealth and character of personality, its individuality was revealed. Among them are the psychological portraits of Albert Einstein, Ivan Pavlov, Charles Gilder, Sergei Rachmaninov, Nadezhda Plevitskaya, Nikolai Feshin, Maxim Gorky, as well as well-known portraits of this writer's granddaughter, Peshkova Martha Maximovna, and Ninochka, her daughters are works that are characterized by wealth Emotional nuances. They are all full of a state of inner peace and purity.

In 1935 Sergey Konenkov, a sculptor, no doubt, talented, created a portrait of Albert Einstein. He is considered to this day one of the most successful images of this great scientist. Completed in 1933, the portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky is considered the pinnacle of Konenkov's work. In it, the master managed to convey the whole complex gamut of different emotional states and create an image full of inner psychology and tragedy.

Religious themes in the work of Konenkov

In the work of Konenkov in the late 1920s, completely new plastic and plot motifs appear - the sculptor turns to religious themes. The Gospel cycle is a comprehensive and the only complete expression of Konenkov's religious quest in sculpture. The following works are represented in the museum: the "Prophet" created from gypsum in 1928, "John" and "Jacob" from terracotta in 1928, as well as images of Christ in plaster and wood.

Latest works of Konenkov

The sculptor in the last years of his life was fond of, first of all, plastic experiments. He made attempts to combine various forms of art, which were expressed in the synthesis of painting and sculpture, the desire to connect the latter with sound and movement. All this is embodied in "Space", a musical sculptural instrument, which can be considered one of the first in the Russian art installations of the 1950s.

Until the end of his life Konenkov remained a bold experimenter and innovator in art, a vast erudition of man, a thinker who deeply experienced the events of that time. Therefore, we can say that it was not without reason that he named his final work "My Age".

Short biography of Konenkov

So, we described the Konenkov Museum. This sculptor was born in 1874, June 28, in the village of Karakovichi (today it is in the Smolensk region, Elninsky district). Below is his portrait of the work of Pavel Korin.

By nationality he is Belarusian, grew up in a peasant family. Konenkov studied at MUZHVZ, after which - at Professor Beklemishev in St. Petersburg, in the Higher Art School. His thesis ("Samson tearing the bonds") was considered too revolutionary and destroyed by the order of the Academy of Arts.

In 1897, the sculptor Konenkov travels to Germany, Italy and France. His biography at that time was marked by the fact that he made a realistic sculpture at the end of the 19th century with the Stonescale. Konenkov was caught in Moscow by the revolutionary events of 1905. He creates under their impression a series of portraits of participants in the clashes on Presnya. Also in 1905 he decorated the Filippov Cafe, located on Tverskaya Street, and in 1910 created the bas-relief "Feast".

Sculptor Konenkov, whose work we are interested in, in 1912 visited Egypt and Greece. At this time he worked on the "Forest series". The tree is widely used in it, various methods of its processing are presented. The forest for Konenkov is a symbol of beauty, the embodiment of the elemental forces of nature. The sculptor uses the methods of folk carving, creatively reinterprets in his works images of ancient traditions. In parallel with this cycle, he also works on "Greek" ("Horus" and "Youth").

This sculptor was one of the first Russian masters of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries to depict a naked female body. Often his works are sustained in the traditions of wood carving, folk Russian art. Note here "Caryatid (1918)," Firebird "(1915)," Winged "(1913).

Konenkov supported the October Revolution, participated in the implementation of the plan for the so-called monumental propaganda. It was created, in particular, for the Red Square monument "Stepan Razin".

Konenkov in 1922 married Vorontsova Margarita Ivanovna and went to the United States. Here the couple lived for 22 years (mainly in New York). This period of his work includes works related to reflections on the theme of the "Apocalypse", the Bible. These are drawings depicting apostles, prophets, Christ, as well as sketches for cosmogony.

Sergey Konenkov was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

So, we examined the memorial museum and the work of the sculptor S. Konenkov. His work today is known not only in our country, but throughout the world.