Marina Yevgenyevna Uspenskaya”Masha’s fairy tales” watercolor cm. 17 x 22 1970 1970

Marina Evgenevna USPENSKAYA (Moscow, 1925 – 2007)

Marina Evgenevna Uspenskaya was born in Moscow. She graduated from the 1905 Art College, where she studied theatre and decorative arts under professor V.A. Shestakov. In 1947 she entered the graphics department of the Surikov Institute in Moscow, where she studied under professor D.E. Dekhtyaryev in the book illustration studio. Soon after graduation she found her passion and craft: Illustrations for childrens’ books. Throughout her career, she made illustrations for some 200 childrens’ books in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Russia, France, India and Japan. She worked for several of the largest publishing houses in her native country, including “Detskaya Literatura”, “Detgiz” and Malysh”. She is particularly famous for her illustrations for classic Russian fairytales, including “Ruslan and Lyudmila“and “Silver Hoof”. Marina Evgenevna was one of the anchor artists on the famous childrens’ journal “Murzilka” from 1958 to the late 1960s. In total, her illustrations have been printed in more than 115 million books and postcards.
Applying watercolour, indian ink and gouache in warm and gentle colours, she saw daily life through the eyes of a child. Her illustrations are detailed, yet with a simple and very light touch, and she showed the joy of being a child, even in an adult world that you do not always understand. Her “private” art focused on lyrical landscapes and still-lives, and she painted many colourful and bright landscapes in gouache from the regions around Moscow, mainly from Tarusa, where her dacha held a special place in her heart. She also painted many oils and gouaches of her local Moscow neighbourhood around Kievskaya and Dorogomilovskaya. Marina Evgenevna continued the tradition of her grandfather Vasily Navozov, artist and Academy member, and for many years her life was connected to famous Moscow artist and academician Boris Uspensky.
Her art changed over time, but always in her very personal and highly recognizable style. From the late 1960s onwards she moved away from her classical realism into a more expressionistic and symbolic world. From the late 1980s she watched, and was inspired by, the changes in everyday life happening in the transition from the Soviet Union to the new Russia. This was for example reflected in her colourful, often red or orange, images of the New Russian Women – as she called them – which she boldly and virtuously depicted in scenes from every-day life. Her favourite media in her later years was the colour pencil, with which she depicted daily life in Moscow, be it in the Moscow metro or evenings at the theatre or the ballet. Marina Evgenevna was an artist of a rare magnitude. She mastered the classical skills of drawing, her touch is deft and precise, but she did not let that fact limit her creations. She stayed young in her art, developed with the times, and even her late art enjoys a tremendous success in the Moscow art scene.

EXHIBITIONS
1953 2nd All-Union exhibition of students’ graduation works
4th exhibition of book illustrators, Moscow
1954 All-Union art exhibition, Moscow
1956 The Soviet Book, Paris
1957 6th exhibition of book illustrations, Moscow
Young Artist to the Youth Festival
3rd exhibition of young Moscow artists
1958 4th exhibition of young artists, Moscow
Youth exhibition, 40 Years of Komsomol, Moscow
1960 Illustrations in Soviet childrens’ books, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark
1962 30 Years of the Moscow Artists’ Union, Moscow
1964 Exhibitions in Czechoslovakia, Canada, Yugoslavia
Moscow – Our Capital, Moscow
1965 Group exhibition on ul. Vavilova 65, Moscow
Graphics artists of the South-West of Moscow
1966 Exhibition in DDR
Autumn exhibition of Moscow Artists
Second Republican exhibition, Soviet Russia, Moscow
1967 All-Union exhibition in the Manezh, Moscow
Moscow Artists – 50 Years Anniversary of the Revolution
1971 1st All-Russian exhibition of drawing, Moscow
1st All-Russian exhibition of book graphics, Moscow
1973 10th exhibition of Moscow book illustrators
1974 11th exhibition of Moscow book illustrators
1976 12th exhibition of Moscow book illustrators
1977 2nd All-Russian exhibition of drawing, Moscow
1978 Group exhibition, artists of childrens’ books, Moscow
1979 13th Exhibition of Moscow book illustrators
1981 6th All-Union exhibition of watercolour, Moscow
1982 50 Years of the Moscow Artists’ Union – 1932-1982
1983 3rd All-Russian exhibition of drawing and watercolour
1984 VIII All-Russian exhibition of watercolour, Baku
2nd All-Union exhibition of drawing, TsDKh, Moscow
7th All-Union exhibition of watercolour, Moscow
2nd All-Russian exhibition of drawing, Moscow
1985 16th exhibition of Moscow book illustrators
40 Years since Victory, Moscow
1987 3rd All-Russia exhibition of book graphics, Irkutsk
8th All-Union exhibition of watercolour
The Artist and Time, Manezh, Moscow
All-Union exhibtion The Land of the Soviets, Moscow
1st All-Union exhibition of graphics
1988 3rd All-Russian еxhibition of book graphics
1990 Personal exhibition, Gallery Diagramma 32, Napoli, Italy
2nd All-Union graphics exhibition
1991 9th All-Union exhibition of watercolour, Moscow
All-Union exhibition of drawing, Moscow
1997 From the artists to the city of Moscow, 850th anniversary of Moscow
Personal exhibition in Napoli, Italy
1999 All-Russian exhibition in the Manezh, Moscow
All-Russian exhibition “The Boldin Spring”, 200 Years of Pushkin, Moscow
2000 All-Russian exhibition “Your Name” to the 2000th Birthday of Christ, Moscow
2001 “Personal collections”, House of Artists, Moscow
2002 70 Years of the Moscow Artists’ Union, Moscow
2005 60 Years of the Victory, Malii Manezh, Moscow

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1963 “Childrens’ Books Illustrators” by Ella Gankina (pp. 201, 203)
1977 “Contemporary Childrens’ Books Illustrators, by Ella Gankina, (pp 135, 195)
1978 The journal “Detskaya Literatura” (August)
1997 The journal “Khudozhnik”, volume 4
2003 Russian Artists’ Union
2004 “XX-XXI Century – Graphics and Oil Painting”, pp. 165, 185