Iurii Mikhailovich Neprintsev

Born Aug. 2 (15), 1909, in Tbilisi. Soviet painter and graphic artist. People’s Artist of the USSR (1965); member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1970).

From 1934 to 1938, Neprintsev studied under I. I. Brodskii in Leningrad at the Academy of Arts. Beginning in 1948 he taught at the Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in Leningrad; he became a professor in 1954. Neprintsev’s best genre pictures and etchings, distinguished by lifelike character studies, represent Soviet people at the front and at home during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45.

In the cycle of etchings The Leningraders (1960–67), the artist dramatically rendered the harsh and tragic life in Leningrad during the blockade. Neprintsev’s other works include Hail, Leningrad! (1947, A. V. Lunacharskii Krai Art Museum, Krasnodar), Respite After Battle (1951, People’s Republic of China; State Prize of the USSR, 1952), The Streetcar Has Come to the Front (1964, Board of Exhibitions of the Art Depository of the RSFSR), In Memory of the Dead (1967, Board of Exhibitions of the Art Depository of the RSFSR), Sailors of the Baltic Fleet (tempera, 1970, Board of the Art Depository and Design of Monuments of the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR), and The Soldiers Are Coming (tempera, 1971, the Primor’e Krai Picture Gallery, Vladivostok). Neprintsev has been awarded two orders and several medals.