Natan Altman

Born Dec. 10 (22), 1889, in Vinnitsa; died Dec. 12, 1970, in Leningrad. Soviet artist. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1968). Studied at the Odessa Art School (1902–07) and in Paris (1910–11).

In his early period Al’tman was under the influence of modern art currents of the early 20th century (cubism, etc.). He took part in the staging of revolutionary festivities in Petrograd (1918) and in Moscow (1921–28). He did a realistic bronze sculpture portrait of V. I. Lenin, for which Lenin posed in 1920 (now in the Leningrad branch of the Lenin Central Museum) and several pencil drawings of Lenin. Al’tman is renowned as a painter (portrait of A. A. Akhmatova, 1914; State Russian Museum, Leningrad), sculptor (plaster portrait of A. V. Lunacharskii, 1920; State Tret’iakov Gallery), graphic artist (illustrations to N. V. Gogol’s Petersburg Stories, published in 1937), and stage designer (V. V, Maiakovskii’s Mystery-Bouffe, 1921, Moscow Circus; Shakespeare’s Hamlet, 1954, Pushkin Leningrad Drama Theater).