Moscow Art Institute

(full name, V. I. Surikov Moscow Art Institute), one of the centers of higher art education in the USSR, a higher educational institution of easel painting and sculpture. It was founded in Moscow sometime in the 1830’s or 1840’s as the School of Painting and Sculpture. After the October Revolution of 1917, the school underwent a number of organizational changes and both its structure and name were altered. In 1937 it became known as the Moscow Art Institute, and in 1948 it was named in honor of V. I. Surikov.

The establishment of the Moscow Art Institute in the 1930’s and 1940’s as a higher educational institution of realistic art is associated with the names of its first rectors, I. E. Grabar’ and S. V. Gerasimov. Professors at the institute have included such well-known Soviet artists as K. N. Istomin, D. S. Moor, G. G. Riazhskii, B. V. Ioganson, A. A. Osmerkin, and A. A. Deineka.

As of 1973 the institute had departments of painting, graphic art, and sculpture; special workshops for easel, theatrical, and mural painting; and workshops for book illustration, poster art, and print-making. The institute maintains a secondary boarding school for artistically gifted children. During the 1972–73 academic year, the Moscow Art Institute had an enrollment of about 400 students and a staff of 60 instructors, including more than 20 professors and doctors of sciences, seven members of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, and three People’s Artists of the USSR. The instructors have included such masters of Soviet art as N. V. Tomskii, E. A. Kibrik, V. F. Ryndin, A. M. Gritsai, P. I. Bondarenko, M. Baburin, L. E. Kerbel’, D. K. Mochal’-skii, B. A. Dekhterev, N. A. Ponomarev, V. G. Tsyplakov, and M. V. Matorin. In 1957 the institute was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.