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The golden boy of Soviet art
Alexander Deyneka's dynamic response to the Bolshevik revolution shines through his work, says CHRISTINE LINDEY
(L to R) Ace [fighter pilot] shot down, 1943; In the Donbass, 1925; Football, drawing for Red Niva magazine, 1927

IN 1917 Alexander Alexandrovich Deyneka (1899-1969) was just 18 and studying in his native Kursk when the upheavals and excitement of the Bolshevik revolution began.

He soon travelled to Moscow to study at the now celebrated Vkhutemas (arts and crafts workshops) and in this cauldron of aesthetic and political debates he honed his Marxist aspiration to create a new Soviet art.

Deyneka joined Vladimir Favorsky’s graphics and printmaking department, where he learned to respect art theory and to construct his compositions in terms of plane and space.

Defence of Petrograd, 1928
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