Isaak Brodskii

Born Dec. 25, 1883 (Jan. 6, 1884), in the village of Sofievka, in present-day Zaporozhe Oblast; died Aug. 14, 1939, in Leningrad. Soviet painter and graphic artist. Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1932).

Brodskii studied in the Odessa Art School (1896-1902) with K. K. Kostandi and in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1902-08) with I. E. Repin. In the years 1905-07 he created for political journals a number of political caricatures directed against autocracy and the study for the picture Red Funerals (1906 Museum-Apartment of I. I. Brodskii, Leningrad). In the prerevolutionary period, along with works in the traditions of Russian lyrical landscape painting of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Winter, 1913; I. I. Brodskii Berdiansk Art Museum), he created a number of portraits (including O. D. Talalaeva, 1915, Tret’iakov Gallery). Brodskii took part in exhibits of the Academy of Arts, the Association of South Russian Artists, and the Society of Wandering Exhibitions. He was a member of the Union of Russian Artists. In the Soviet period, Brodskii painted a series of historical revolutionary pictures of an artistic and documentary character (The Solemn Opening of the Second Congress of the Comintern, 1920-24, Museum of the Revolution of the USSR, Moscow; The Execution of the 26 Baku Commissars, 1925, branch of the Lenin Central Museum, Baku; The Speech of V. I. Lenin at a Meeting of Workers at the Putilov Factory, 1929, and The Speech of V. I. Lenin at the Department of Units of the Red Army to the Polish Front, 1933—both in the Lenin Central Museum, Moscow). He devoted much effort to creating the image of V. I. Lenin (V. I. Lenin, pencil, 1920—a sketch from life; Lenin with the Kremlin in the Background, 1924; Lenin in the Smol’ny, 1930—all in the Lenin Central Museum, Moscow). Brodskii also sketched and painted portraits of leaders of the party and the government; he painted A. M. Gorky’s portrait (1937, Tret’iakov Gallery.) He was a member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia from 1924. He played a large role in the reorganization of art education in the USSR on the basis of a realistic system of teaching. He was a professor (1932) and director (1934) of the All-Russian Academy of Arts in Leningrad. His students included A. I. Laktionov, VI. A. Serov, and Iu. M. Neprintsev. He was awarded an Order of Lenin.