Tilberg, Ianis

(in Latvian, Jānis Tilbergs). Born June 20 (July 2), 1880, in Riga; died there Nov. 7, 1972. Soviet painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. People’s Artist of the Latvian SSR (1955).

Tilberg studied under D. N. Kardovskii at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts from 1901 to 1909. He became a professor at the Latvian Academy of Arts in Riga, where he taught from 1921 to 1932 and from 1947 to 1957. In 1906 to 1907 he drew political caricatures for the journal Svari (Scale), which was published in St. Petersburg. He helped implement Lenin’s plan of monument propaganda by sculpturing a memorial bust of T. G. Shevchenko in Petrograd (plaster of paris, 1918, not preserved). His art, which advanced the tradition of formal portraiture, is characterized by accurate representation, the conveying of the three-dimensional nature of the human body, a restricted range of colors, and, sometimes, a certain exaggeration of the features of the subject of the portrait. Examples include the portraits of J. Rainis (1925) and E. Smijgis (1949), both of which are in the Art Museum of the Latvian SSR in Riga. Tilberg was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.