Academy of Arts of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics AKh SSSR

the highest scholarly institution uniting the most prominent members of Soviet fine arts and providing scholarly and methodological leadership in the training of art specialists. Located in Moscow, it was created on Aug. 5, 1947, by a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR that reorganized the All-Russian Academy of Arts. As of July 1, 1969, the academy consisted of 39 members, 61 corresponding members, and ten honorary members selected from the progressive representatives of foreign arts. (As of Oct. 1, 1972, there were 39 members, 56 corresponding members, and nine honorary members.) N. V. Tomskii has been president of the academy since 1968.

The academy’s aim is to promote the creative development of the principles of socialist realism in the practice and theory of Soviet multinational artistic culture. The highest body of the AKh SSSR is the general assembly. Between sessions, the presidium, headed by the president, directs the activities of the academy. The academy has four divisions—painting, sculpture, drawing, and decorative arts—and maintains a number of schools and museums. In Moscow, it has the Research Institute of the Theory and History of Fine Arts and the V. I. Surikov Art Institute, with a secondary school. In Leningrad, it maintains the I. E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, with a secondary art school; the Scientific Research Museum; and I.I. Brodskii’s apartment, now a museum. Penaty, the estate of I. E. Repin in the settlement of Repino, is also a museum maintained by the academy. In addition, the academy has a scholarly library of about 311,000 volumes, archives, workshops and laboratories in Leningrad, and studios in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev.

The presidents of the academy have been A. M. Gerasimov (1947–57), B. V. Ioganson (1958–62), V. A. Serov (1962–68), and N. V. Tomskii (since 1968).