Aleksandra Belzova

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Self portrait
Aleksandra Belzowa , 1923
Oil on canvas

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Aleksandra Mitrofanovna Belzowa ( Latvian Aleksandra Mitrofanovna Beļcova ; born March 17, 1892 in Surasch , † February 1, 1981 in Riga ) was a Latvian - Soviet painter and graphic artist .

biography

Aleksandra Belzowa was born in 1892 in Surasch, Chernigov Governorate of the Russian Empire , into a peasant family. Her father Mitrofan Belzow was ennobled for his services.

Belzowa closed 1912 girls' school in the Russian Novozybkov from, attended from 1912 to 1917 the art school in Penza and took in subsequent years additional courses within the State Free Art Workshops in the studio of the painter Natan Altman (1889-1970) in Petrograd .

During her first exhibition in Petrograd in 1919, she met the painter and set designer Romans Suta (1896–1944), one of her former fellow students from Penza, who had meanwhile settled in Latvia. They married in Riga in 1922 and went on study trips to Dresden , Berlin and Paris , where in 1923 their daughter, the ballet dancer, art historian and museum founder Tatiana Suta (1923–2004), was born. Her granddaughter Inga Suta devoted herself to music and now plays the cello .

Belzowa was a member of the Riga artist group from 1920 to 1924 and took part in various exhibitions from 1920, including from 1927 to 1931 in group exhibitions of the Latvian artists' association Green Crow ( Latvian Zaļā vārna ). Her solo exhibitions took place in Riga (1928, 1962, 1972), Tuckum (1963), Leningrad (1972, 1973), Libau (1974) and Jūrmala (1977). At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1925 , she won two gold and one bronze medals for the porcelain works of art by the Baltars group. In 1945 she became a member of the Latvian Artists Association .

Aleksandra Belzowa died on February 1, 1981 in Riga and was buried in the local forest cemetery. After her death, memorial exhibitions were held in her honor in Riga (1984), Libau and Modohn (1985) and Wolmar (1986). In 2008, a museum and art gallery dedicated to the art of Aleksandra Belzova and Roman's Sutas was opened in her house in Riga, the Romana Sutas un Aleksandras Beļcovas muzejs .

plant

She mainly created portraits , landscapes and still lifes in the style of cubism and realism , but also cartoons and book graphics with oil paints , pastels and watercolors . Together with Romans Suta she participated in the porcelain painting in the studio of the Baltars (1924–1929; acronym of Ars baltica = Baltic art ).

Belzova's most famous paintings are The White and the Black ( Latvian Baltā un melnā , 1925, oil on canvas). Today it is part of the Latvian National Art Museum . Another important of her works is the self-portrait with Austra Ozolini-Krause in the background ( Latvian Pašportrets ar Austras Ozoliņas-Krauzes ģīmetni fonā , 1927, watercolor and ink on paper). Ozolini-Krause (1890-1941) was a Latvian publicist, writer and author and was considered a close friend of Belzowas. The painting The Tennis Player (1928, oil on canvas) is also worth mentioning .

The white and the black

The white and the black
Aleksandra Belzowa , 1925
Oil on canvas
100 × 120 cm
Latvian National Art Museum , Riga

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The White and the Black ( Latvian Baltā un melnā ) is a double portrait in oil on canvas by Aleksandra Belzowa in 1925. It comes from the artist's early days and is one of her best-known works.

The painting, measuring 100 × 120 centimeters, shows two women. The beautiful woman in the background is lying on the sofa, wearing a light tunic and holding a fan in her right hand. Pictured here is Biruta Ozolina (1905–1982), the sister of Austra Ozolini-Krause and wife Giovanni Amadoris (1883–1958), Italian diplomat in Bangkok who often visited Latvia. The dark-skinned girl in the foreground represents the nanny of Ozolina's son Peppino.

The painting was created at the time when European art was changing between Art Deco and Neorealism . It shows both visual reality and realistic forms of representation that followed cubism and abstract experiments of the early 20th century. Realistic trends were common across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

Today the painting is part of the collection of the Latvian National Art Museum in Riga.

literature

  • Indulis Bilzēns (ed.): Unexpected encounter. Latvian avant-garde 1910–1935 . Wienand, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-87909-250-8 .
  • Irēna Bužinska: Бельцова Александра Митрофановна . In: Vasilij I. Rakitin (ed.): Энциклопедия русского авангарда . Moscow 2013, ISBN 978-5-902801-10-8 , pp. 65 .
  • Irēna Bužinska: Две женщины-художницы в Латвии. Александра Митрофановна Бельцова и Маргарита Лиепине-Скулме . In: Georgij F. Kovalenko (ed.): Амазонки авангарда . Moscow 2004, ISBN 5-02-010251-2 , pp. 264-275 .
  • Skaidrīte Cielava (Ed.): Latviešu tēlotāja māksla. 1860-1940 . Riga 1986.
  • Jānis Siliņš: Latvijas māksla. 1915-1940 . tape 1 . Stockholm 1988.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Suta un Beļcovas Muzejs. Latvijas Nacionālais mākslas muzejs, accessed April 14, 2020 .
  2. ^ Museum of Romans Suta and Aleksandra Belcova. Google Arts & Culture, accessed April 14, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Andris Vilsons: Maksla un arhitektura biogrāfijās . tape 1 . Riga 1995, ISBN 5-89960-058-6 .
  4. ↑ a b c d The White and the Black. Europeana, accessed April 14, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Latvian Art Exhibitions in May 2019. Latvian Press Review, May 2, 2019, accessed April 15, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Belzova, Aleksandra
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Belzowa, Aleksandra Mitrofanovna (full name); Belzowa-Suta, Aleksandra Mitrofanovna (married name); Beļcova, Aleksandra Mitrofanovna (Latvian); Бельцова, Александра Митрофановна (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latvian-Soviet painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Surasch , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 1st February 1981
Place of death Riga , Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic