Gaponenko, Taras

Born Feb. 20 (Mar. 5), 1906, in the village of Staraia Zavoron’ in present-day Smolensk Oblast. Soviet painter. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1968). Corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1954).

Gaponenko studied in Moscow at the State Higher Arts and Technical Studio and the State Higher Institute of Art and Technology (1924-30). He was a member of the Youth League of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (1928-29), the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (1929-31), and the Russian Association of Proletarian Artists (1931-32). His works are devoted chiefly to life in the kolkhoz village. They include The Kolkhoz Women Going Out to Work (1933, Tret’iakov Gallery) and In the Little Poultry Town (1959-60, Russian Museum, Leningrad). The painting Sucklings on the Way to Their Mothers (1935, Tret’iakov Gallery) played an important role in the development of Soviet genre painting. Gaponenko also painted the dramatic picture After Driving Out the Fascist Occupiers (1943-46, Tret’iakov Gallery; State Prize of the USSR, 1947).