Tatiana Iablonskaia

Born Feb. 11 (24); 1917, in Smolensk. Soviet painter. People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1960); member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1975). Member of the CPSU since 1952.

Iablonskaia studied at the Kiev Art Institute under F. G. Krichevskii from 1935 to 1941. She taught at the institute from 1947 to 1973; in 1967 she became a professor there. Iablonskaia’s landscapes and thematic paintings contain life-affirming, poetic images of her contemporaries and her native countryside. Both the subject and the composition of her painting Bread (1949, Tret’iakov Gallery; State Prize of the USSR, 1950) reflect the theme of free socialist labor. Truthfulness of images, emotional tension, and lyricism characterize such works as Spring (1950, Russian Museum, Leningrad; State Prize of the USSR, 1951), Over the Dnieper (1954, Museum of Fine Arts of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev), and Together With Father (1961, Museum of Fine Arts of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev).

Iablonskaia uses images of great general significance in her paintings Nameless Heights (1969, Tret’iakov Gallery), Evening: Old Florence (1973, Tret’iakov Gallery), and Life Goes On (1971), which reflect profound meditation upon life. Iablonskaia’s style of painting, which is based on the traditions of folk mural painting, makes use of rich colors and exhibits a decorative quality. Her later works are known for their effective rendering of physical objects.

A deputy to the fourth and fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, Iablonskaia has been awarded two orders.