David Burliuk

David Burliuk was born into the family of a self-taught agronomist, a native of peasants, who served as a manager in large estates. He had two brothers and three sisters. As a child, his sibling accidentally deprived David of his eye while playing with a toy gun. Subsequently, he got a glass eye, which became a part of his style.

Entered the Kazan Art School, where his teachers were Mufke and G. Medvedev. There he studied with long interruptions until 1902, but never finished it.

He began to study at the Odessa Art College. Made his debut in printed media as a poet. Burliuk’s teachers were progressive painters K. Kostandi, G. Ladyzhensky, A. Popov, but the young man wanted more creative freedom.

Studied at the Munich Royal Academy of Arts with Professor Willy Dietz and talented Slovenian teacher Anton Ashbe, who considered drawing to be the basis of mastery. Ashbe had many reasons to call Burliuk “an amazing wild steppe horse”.

Moved to Paris, where he continued his education. He studied at the F. Cormon School of Fine Arts, where N. Roerich had previously studied; he was one of Burliuk’s favorite artists, about whom he wrote and published a book much later.

Returning to Russia, he made friends with avant-garde painters. This contributed to the creation of the futuristic group “Gilea” (the Greek name of ancient Scythia) next year, which was officially announced in 1910. Subsequently, it was its participants that became known as Cubo-futurists.

Entered the Munich group “Der Blaue Reiter” and became an exhibitor at the Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser. Among his like-minded friends were Expressionist artists of a world level – Kandinsky, Klee, Yavlensky; the composition of this second exhibition, in general, was very representative: the works of avant-garde Parisian artists Picasso, Braque, Derain, van Dongen, Le Focognier, Vlamink, Rouault. After Munich, 115 works of the artist were shown in seven cities, including in Berlin, Dresden.

Having received a diploma in Odessa, he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he was in the full-class class of L. Pasternak and A. Arkhipov. He studied with Mayakovsky, whom he actively supported, giving 50 kopecks daily, so that his friend could write poems “without starving”. Became the creator of the Futurist collections “The Judges’ Pool”, “Slap the Public Taste”, etc. He soon married Maria Yelenevskaya, who became his secretary, publisher, and the mother of two of his sons.

Together with Mayakovsky, his companion in the struggle for the dictatorship of Futurism in contemporary art, he was excluded from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, because the institution’s pedagogical council considered this art movement “dangerous and harmful art”.

He moved to Urals together with his family. In Bashkiria, where his wife’s parents had a manor, he lived for three years with trips to the capital and created about 200 paintings, the heroes of which for the first time in the history of the region were indigenous people. Thirty-seven paintings, the most significant part of the legacy that remained in Russia, are included in the collection of the Nesterov Bashkir Museum.

Emigrated to Japan, where he lived for two years; in 1921, he had a solo exhibition in Kyoto; the imperial family of Japan, which showed interest and helped in its arrangement, acquired several works by the artist. He studied the culture of the country, was engaged in painting (created about 300 paintings), organized exhibitions with Palmov. Burliuk was the first to show the Japanese public the branches of modern European culture.

Settled in the United States; his paintings participated in the First Russian Art Exhibition at the Van Diemen Gallery in Berlin. In the future, the artist several times a year exhibited his paintings at various galleries in many cities of America.

Together with his wife, he started publishing the magazine «Color and Rhyme», which was published until 1966 and distributed mainly in the USSR. Organized outdoor exhibitions in southern Manhattan. The expositions were located in Washington Square in order to provide young artists with an opportunity to earn. He became a regular contributor to the “Russian Voice” newspaper.

Opened «Burliuk Gallery» in a small house that he previously purchased on the shore of the sea near New York. It was open in the summer and on weekends. Dozens of famous American artists and his emigre compatriots flocked here.

Visited USSR together with his wife. Despite repeated appeals and offers to publish his works in his motherland, Burliuk could not publish even one page. He went to his homeland and visited Gurzuf in 1965.

He traveled with his wife to Australia, where a large personal exhibition of the artist was held in Brisbane, Queensland.

David Burliuk died on January 15 in 1967 in Hampton Base, Long Island, New York, the USA.