Isaak Brodsky

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Izrailevich and the family name is Brodsky.

Isaak Brodsky
Born	Isaak Izrailevich Brodsky 6 January 1884 [O.S. 25 December 1883] Sofiyivka, Taurida Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	14 August 1939(1939-08-14) (aged 55) Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR
Resting place	Literatorskiye Mostki, Saint Petersburg
Education	Odesa Art Academy Imperial Academy of Arts
Known for	Painting
Movement	Socialist realism
Children	Two, including Lidiya
Relatives	Fyodor Reshetnikov (son-in-law)
Awards	Order of Lenin Honoured Worker of the Arts Industry of the RSFSR

External image
Aleksandr Laktionov, Isaak Brodsky, signed and dated 1938, oils; Russian Museum

Self-portrait

Isaak Izrailevich Brodsky (Russian: Исаа́к Изра́илевич Бро́дский, Ukrainian: Іса́к Ізраїльович Бро́дський; 6 January 1884 [O.S. 25 December 1883] – 14 August 1939) was a Russian painter and draughtsman of Jewish descent, active in St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) during the Silver Age and early Soviet era, best known for his portrayals of Vladimir Lenin and other Soviet leaders, renowned as blueprint examples of the Socialist realist style.

Life and career

Portrait of Brodsky by Ilya Repin, 1913

Brodsky was born in the village of Sofiyivka near Berdiansk in modern day Ukraine to Yisrael, a Jewish merchant. He studied at Odesa Art Academy and the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. For five years he studied at the Academy under Ilya Repin. In 1916, he joined the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. When Brodsky asked Lenin to autograph his painting Lenin, he said: "I am signing to what I don't agree with for the first time".

Brodsky was on good terms with many leading Russian painters, including his mentor, Ilya Repin. He was an avid art collector who donated numerous first-class paintings to museums in his native Ukraine and elsewhere. His art collection included important works by Repin, Vasily Surikov, Valentin Serov, Isaak Levitan, Mikhail Vrubel, and Boris Kustodiev.

Brodsky was an Honoured Worker of the Arts Industry of the RSFSR and a member of the Union of Russian Artists. He was the first painter to be awarded the Order of Lenin. In 1934, he was appointed Director of the All-Russian Academy of Arts. From 1934 to 1939, he was also a head of personal Art workshop in institute, where his pupils included the well-known Soviet painters: Nikolai Timkov, Aleksandr Laktionov, Yuri Neprintsev, Piotr Belousov, Piotr Vasiliev, Mikhail Kozell and others.

Legacy

He died in Leningrad in 1939. His memoirs were published posthumously. After his death, Brodsky's apartment in on Arts Square in St. Petersburg was declared a national museum. His art collection is still on exhibit there.

Odesa Fine Arts Museum bore Brodsky's name in 1938-1941.

The Berdyansk Art Museum, founded by Brodsky in 1930, bears Brodsky's name, where the artist gave about 200 paintings by Russian artists from his collection.

Gallery

• Portrait paintings
• 
  Ludmila Burluk, 1906
• 
  Maria Andreyeva, 1910
• 
  Self-Portrait, featuring the painter's then toddler daughter Lidiya, 1911
• 
  Ilya Repin, 1912
• 
  Korney Chukovsky, 1915
• 
  Alexander Kerensky, c. 1917–1918
• 
  Vladimir Lenin in Front of Smolny, 1925
• 
  Mikhail Frunze, 1929
• 
  Joseph Stalin, 1935
• 
  Maxim Gorky, 1937

• Narrative paintings
• 
  A Worker's Funeral, 1906
• 
  Italy, 1911
• 
  Fairy Tale, 1911
• 
  Children on the Lawn, 1913
• 
  The Opening of the 2nd Congress of the Comintern, 1920–1924
• 
  The Passing of the Communards' Banner to the Moscow Workers, c. 1924
• 
  The Execution of the Baku Commissars, 1925
• 
  Lenin at the Putilov Factory, May 1917, 1929
• 
  Lenin in Smolny, 1930
• 
  A Demonstration on 25 October Prospect, 1934

• Landscape paintings
• 
  New Moon, 1906
• 
  Akademicheskaya Dacha, 1907
• 
  At the Evening, 1911
• 
  Golden Autumn, 1913
• 
  Alley in a Park, 1930

Publications

• Brodsky, Isaak I. (1940). Brodsky, Iosif Anat. (ed.). Мой творческий путь (in Russian). Leningrad, Moscow: Iskusstvo – via the Russian State Library repository.
  • Brodsky, Isaak I. (1965). Brodsky, Iosif Anat. (ed.). Мой творческий путь (in Russian). Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR.
  • Brodsky, Isaak I. (2014). Brodsky, Iosif Anat. (ed.). Мой творческий путь (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Lenizdat / Komanda-A. ISBN 978-5-4453-0746-4.
• Brodsky, Isaak I.; et al. (1959). Brodsky, Iosif Anat. and Sokolnikov, Mikhail P. [in Russian] (eds.). Памяти И. И. Бродского. Воспоминания. Документы. Письма (in Russian). Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR.

Further reading

• Brodsky, Iosif Anat. (1973). Исаак Израилевич Бродский (in Russian). Moscow: Izobrazitel'noe Iskusstvo. OCLC 186219093 – via the Internet Archive.
• Rakitin, Vasliy I. [in Russian] (1996). "Brodsky, Isaak (Izrailevich)". In Turner, Jane (ed.). The Dictionary of Art. Vol. 4. New York: Grove's Dictionaries. pp. 837–838. ISBN 1-884446-00-0. OCLC 1033646743 – via the Internet Archive.
• Goodman, Susan Tumarkin; et al. (1996). Jewish Museum, New York City (ed.). Russian Jewish Artists in a Century of Change, 1890–1990 (exhibition catalog). Munich, New York: Prestel. pp. 33, 45, 48, 85, 152, 180. ISBN 3-7913-1601-X. OCLC 1409189598.
• Voltsenburg, Oskar E. [in Russian]; et al., eds. (1972). "Бродский, Исаак Израилевич". Художники народов СССР (in Russian). Vol. 2. Moscow: Iskusstvo. pp. 74–76.

External links

• Isaak Brodsky at the Russian Academy of Arts' official website (in Russian)