Iosif Serebrianyi

Born Apr. 12 (25), 1907, in Gorodnia, in what is now Chernigov Oblast. Soviet painter. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1965); corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1947). Member of the CPSU since 1943. From 1927 to 1931, Serebrianyi studied at the Leningrad State Higher Arts and Technical Institute (reorganized in 1930 as the Institute of Proletarian Fine Arts); his instructors included V. E. Savinskii, A. A. Rylov, and M. P. Bobyshev. Serebrianyi directed the administrative board of the Leningrad department of the Union of Soviet Artists from 1948 to 1952 and again from 1954 to 1958. He teaches at the I. E. Repin Leningrad Institute of Painting. Sculpture, and Architecture (1948–51 and since 1954), where he has been a professor since 1949. Serebrianyi paints primarily historical revolutionary scenes and portraits. Using simple compositional elements, he creates lofty yet realistic portraits of Soviet people as workers and warriors (The Students-Partisans from the P. F. Lesgaft Physical Training Institute, 1942, Russian Museum, Leningrad; Concert of the Leningrad Philharmonic Society, 1957, Russian Museum; Portrait of D. Shostakovich, wax tempera, 1964, Tret’iakov Gallery).