Mavrina Tatyana Alekseevna is the only Soviet artist to be awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Prize for his contribution to illustrating children's literature. In these New Year's Eve, she would have turned 116 years old. According to surviving information, the girl, who later became a famous painter, was born on December 20 (the old 7th) of 1900. Being an adult, on occasion invariably reduced herself to a couple of years. This is probably the reason for the birth dates of 1901, 1902. A cheerful smiling man, a master of tremendous capacity for work, is what her contemporaries characterize.
70 years of creativity
Mavrina Tatyana (1900-1996) lived in the world for almost a century. Her childhood passed under the tsar, youth and maturity under Soviet rule. About people like her, they say: "I've seen a lot." The difficulties of the turning periods did not affect her positive outlook. For seventy years of painting and book illustration, she created a gallery of beautiful memorable literary images.
It seemed that in the Soviet Union there was no child who did not admire the sight of a beautiful imperial daughter who died from the treats of Chernavka. The book "The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights", designed by Tatyana Alekseevna, was published in 1949. The country recognized and remembered a manner of writing close to primitivism, Old Russian and folk art.
Once the impressions of visiting the Epiphany Fair in Nizhny Novgorod sunk into the heart of the girl. Being a mature man, Lebedeva recalled how she admired the toys: loaded carts were coming from behind the Volga. She admired the view of sprung horses covered with needles of hoarfrost, on which her favorite Semenov and Gorodets toys were brought.
The choice was so great that my eyes widened. The kids walked around, chose, until they turned into "numbed figures." Love for a folk toy influenced the work of the graphic.
Dreams Come True
"Brush test" in a new field was successful. The artist Tatyana Mavrina left a rich legacy: more than 200 books have been issued by her in the highest class. Most of them are the "Mavrino Pushkiniana." Remember the three girls under the window, who were hiding late in the evening, the bride of Babarikh, the other colorful characters of "Tales of Tsar Saltan."
Or a graceful learned cat on a golden chain near a sprawling oak ... The artist created a special world: tremulous, awakening imagination, pushing you to think. He is a part of our childhood. There is evidence that Mavrina Tatyana Alekseevna wanted to write illustrations for Pushkin's fairy tales back in the years of World War II. Despite the military devastation, fabulous images were seen everywhere.
From Nizhny to Moscow
From a young age, familiar with the work of the classic, on the old spiers of Zagorsk pink buildings (Zagorsky was called Sergiev Posad from 1930 to 1991), the artist mentally led the Golden Cockerel out of a fairy tale of the same name. However, the graphic artist decided to seriously engage in the illustration of Pushkin's works only after the Great Victory.
Who is she, Tatyana Mavrina? The biography of the representative of the cohort of Russian Soviet intelligentsia is not a secret. Born in Nizhny Novgorod. Father's name was Alexei Ivanovich Lebedev. The teacher and writer gave his daughter his last name. But in 1930, she took a pseudonym - her mother’s maiden name.
Hereditary noblewoman Anastasia Petrovna Mavrina, like her husband, was engaged in teaching (she was the director of the Gatsissky Nizhny Novgorod school for girls from poor families). Alexey and Anastasia had four children - three daughters and a son. They were brought up diversified, instilled a love of literature, art, music.
Life in the capital
Tatyana is the most famous of her sisters. Her younger brother Sergei went down in Soviet history as a scientist who stood at the origins of the computer industry. From Nizhny to Moscow, the noble family moved in 1920. The girl studied at the famous creative school Vhutemas-Vhutein (higher art and technical workshops and institute). She studied the work of French artists.
At a certain stage of the student life, she became interested in folk art (she was interested in icon painting, popular print, tiles, gingerbread boards). Own pictorial language, where the color "sounds" openly, the world is wide and decorative, and the compositions are bold, Tatyana Mavrina formed gradually. The formation of the artist was helped by teachers N. Sinezubov, G. Fedorov, R. Falk.
Nice "damn dozen"
In 1929, an exhibition was held in Moscow, in which 13 artists took part. The creative group of young supporters of the drawing “at the pace of nature” was called “Thirteen” (according to the number of participants). Young Lebedeva and her future husband and colleague Nikolai Kuzmin were included in the cell of deniers of “Gothic breaks and emotional instability”.
Having become spouses, in the winter they lived in a small room on Sukharevskaya Square in Moscow. They preferred to spend the warm period of the year at the cottage in Abramtsevo. Probably, there they found a healthy and joyful lifestyle, for which they advocated. And they wrote in the genre of “silent art”. Mavrina Tatyana created expressive-pictorial (sometimes with an erotic touch) easel work. They attracted spectator attention.
Essential state of life
The art of the 1930s featured chamber and ceremonial realism. Due to strict censorship and ideological pressure, many artists (including Mavrina and Kuzmin) turned to the chamber, displaying landscapes full of love for their native land, scenes of family life (everything that was outside the literary and ideological framework).
Group 13 developed its own graphic style. Soon there was a split within the community, it broke up. However, in the mid-1930s, the stylistic findings of the "damn dozen" firmly entered the book and magazine illustration. Painting Tatyana Mavrina for the most part belongs to this period. The works are reminiscent of French post-impressionist movements.
Collector and Wonder Maker
The artist painted for the last time in oil on canvas in 1942. It was a painting "Dancing on the Club Veranda." After that, by her own admission, another life began. But a strong woman did not despair because of the lack of paints and fabric for painting. She opened a simple notebook and drew Moscow with a pencil. Passed the capital far and wide. After the fiery forties of the twentieth century, Tatyana Alekseevna was fond of collecting icons, clay toys, trays, embroidered works. With Nikolai Kuzmin, they put together an enviable collection of folk art objects.
Together with her husband, she painted spinning wheels, small birch bark boxes (tueski), bottles, made copies of luboks, as if creating illustrations for waking fairy tales. So, from item to item, decorated in a dashing decorative manner, a master of folk art was born. In 1950-1960, the artist with a capital letter was carried away by the image of nature. I traveled to Russian settlements, the annals of which have been kept since ancient times.
Blue lights of cornflowers
In what place Tatyana Mavrina spied cornflowers on the window - it does not matter. Most importantly, the image appeared and lives even after the death of the author. Looking at the picture of the same name, former Soviet schoolchildren recall a textbook on the Russian language that they studied in elementary grades. On the basis of this bright picture, the children developed (and are developing) an interest in works of fine art.
In detail analyzing every detail on the canvas, today children describe how they feel, how they understand the artist’s idea. Having depicted a window on the top floor, the brush master seemed to bring the audience closer to the sky. There is no sun above the roof, which is clearly visible to the person "in the room". But the invisible presence of the luminary is given out by golden clouds, reflections on the windowsill and a glass jar-vase.
Miracle alphabet
Due to the fact that the objects in the picture (flowers, clouds, a house) do not have clear contours, a sensation of unusual dynamics appears: everything changes its position in space, as if melting from heat. Simple blurry strokes, but what an effect! It’s as if we feel the warmth of a sunbeam on ourselves. The sky is so clear blue that it is clear: it is a summer day. Flowers on the window, and not inside the room - as a roll call of animate and inanimate nature. Clear "eyes" of flowers in a tone of heavenly blue. Perfect solution.
Some believe that the "Alphabet" by Mavrina is another version of the illustration for fairy tales. The book for the smallest reflects the wealth of folk fantasy. Studying letters, our children learn a good joke, receive unobtrusive instructions, enjoy miracles.
The primer is considered one of the masterpieces of which there are not many in children's book publishing. Those who have deeply studied and are studying the legacy of the Russian graphic artist, argue: the pinnacle of creativity sparkling with all its faces is practically unattainable.
The unique interweaving of miracles
An unusual book for children of primary preschool and school age, published in 1969, not as a simple textbook. The masterpiece was made by the Goznak General Directorate (Moscow), which works only on orders of national importance. Fans and lovers of printing remember this thin red cardboard, gold embossed on the lid, a dust jacket drawn on a gold background.
What did Tatyana Alekseevna Mavrina call her work? "Fairy tale alphabet." No wonder: this talented woman could not live without a world where everything is a lie, but there is a hint in it, a lesson for cute children. By coloring the alphabet, the artist created a complex pattern from many fairy tales.
Learning by playing
A, b, c, d, d ... A ladder into the sky of knowledge is simple-minded, cheerful, bright, reliable. It seems that in our diverse world (there are no options for counting alphabets alone) this classic alphabet has no equal in accessibility, wisdom, laconicism. Children love the word game. Mavrina Tatyana used this “trick”.
The images that inhabit each letter live and act in the same way with their fabulous prototypes. Mastery of the highest class - to make sure that every dash, every zagululinka works to comprehend the letter. You can spend the whole evening watching how geese swans fly (and Baba Yaga is against), how mushroom boletus grows, Tsar Saltan’s fleet moves, and Dadon is taken out of the Golden Sack.
Tatyana Alekseevna depicted the most famous and beloved heroes of fairy tales not only in “encrypted form”, but also on separate pages. An eternal child in the shower, Mavrina did not always give answers to riddles. She invited the kids to solve them on their own.
Wisdom lives here
What a blessing that there once lived Mavrina Tatyana Alekseevna! The master’s paintings, as if coming from a fairy tale. Fabulous illustrations, like fantastic paintings. Spirituality, which is so lacking in modern children. A fun clue where to look for the essence of life that has been tested for centuries. It is believed that the children brought up on the legacy of the Russian graphic artist feel thinner, deeper, higher.
The ABC is reprinted today. Korolevich Elisha, Sister Alyonushka, Emelya on the stove, Sivka-Burka the Prophetic Kaurka returned to the virtual, catastrophically spammed world. Many parents admit: they really want the children to make friends with a book decorated with the hand of a real, thoughtful master. Some advisors make a remark: "If you like the" Mauritian style "." We hope you and your children will like it.
Our pride and beauty
We finish the story with what was mentioned at the beginning: it is very difficult to list all the Russian cities where Mavrina Tatyana Alekseevna visited. Her visits were long remembered by the old-timers of Zvenigorod, Pereslavl of Zalessky, Yuryev-Polsky, Suzdal, Uglich, Yaroslavl, Kostroma. The result of his creative travels is an album-book entitled “Ways and Roads” compiled by the Artist of the RSFSR publishing house in 1980. It is based on 212 types of unique corners of Russia (watercolor, gouache).
The traditional heading "About the Author" contains text in several languages (including English, French, German). The book was printed in Germany in an encyclopedic format. Tatyana Alekseevna herself chose the sheets, built the layout. In 1976, for her work she received the title of Laureate of the USSR State Prize, became the Honored Artist of Russia.
The following opinion of art critics (and simply not indifferent citizens) is interesting: often after the death of an artist, much of what is created fades, is overestimated. In this case, the opposite is true: the phrase "brilliant artist" can be pronounced without hesitation, as it happens in life. Works by T. A. Mavrina are in all major museums in Russia.