Robert Falk

description

A Russian painter, sculptor, graphic artist and stage designer of Jewish origin, who combined the features of Russian Art Nouveau and avant-garde in his original work. One of the most famous and prominent Yiddish theater artists. Almost one decade spent in France did not make him a member of the Paris School of Art; accused of formalism, Robert Falk rarely exhibited his paintings in his motherland for the last twenty years of his creative career. However, he continued to create easel paintings “for himself”. He showed his works privately as a representative of unofficial art, the inspirer of which he became when he was young. He supported many young artists who visited his workshop.

Key ideas:

– Robert Falk, nicknamed the “Silent Avant-Garde Artist”, began his career as an artist in a group of noisy and ambitious art innovators; he was a junior representative of the association “Jack of Diamonds”. Introverted character is also characteristic of his works – they are chamber in their own way, although, without a doubt, are innovative. In his case, we can talk about non-keen, but firm resistance, and not about declarative opposition to Academicism and Realism.

– Just like his comrades-“jacks”, Robert sought volumetric expressiveness of form, painted with angular planes of saturated colour. He wrote, “I loved the combinations of bright, contrasting, generalized expressive contours, emphasized them with dark paints”.

– The main thing in his deprived of “prettiness” landscapes and laconic, even stingy still lifes made up of simple things was the physically tangible density of trees and houses, bottles and ceramic jugs. Trying to mould the mass with colours and generalize the forms, Falk, like other avant-garde artists, used some of the techniques of the “signboard” and popular print primitives, which visually make the volume heavier and denser.

– While canvases of most avant-garde artists often sprinkle with cheerfulness, Robert’s works are distinguished by hidden drama and a kind of gloom. They are expressed not in the plots, but in the picturesque system of such works as “Red Furniture” – angular and predatory-intense with dense, aggressive colour.

– Gradually, by the end of the 1920s, the master’s painting became more complicated and finer: cubist shifts, as well as demonstrative “signboard” almost disappeared, and the emotional tension was talentedly conveyed with the help of other techniques. The surface of the canvas gently vibrates with a changing and complex colour, as the artist found a holistic colour and lighting environment, enveloping objects and people.

– Working as a stage designer at the theater in the turbulent 1920s and the following years, Falk creatively designed the stage space – a miserable real life grotesquely collided with flashy bright fiction. In the post-war period, the artist rejected by official art painted almost realistic portraits.

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1886

1904 - 1905

1905 - 1909

1910

1918

1921 - 1926

1928

1936

1939

1940

1950

1958

Robert Falk was born

Robert Falk was born on the 27th of October into an intelligent and wealthy Jewish family of Rafail Falk, a lawyer and talented chess player, in Moscow. He was one of three sons who graduated from the Lutheran educational institution of Peterpaulschule, where all lessons were in German; this made him a widely educated person. He became interested in drawing early, but his parents insisted that he should study music.

He studied fine art at private studio schools

He studied fine art at private studio schools: first at the workshop of K. Yuon and I. Dudin, then at the studio of I. Mashkov, who later became his colleague in the Jack of Diamonds group.

He had classes at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture

He had classes at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and the workshop of Serov and Korovin who considerably influenced him. To marry Elizabeth Potekhina, he got baptized, taking the name Roman, which he refused from after the revolution.

He made an educational trip to Italy

After the “Jack of Diamonds” exhibition, he became one of the founding members of the art association of the same name, actively participated in its activities until 1916. He made an educational trip to Italy, bypassing 15 cities on foot.

He began teaching at the State Art Workshops

He began teaching at the State Art Workshops (former Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture), was the dean of the faculty of painting until 1928. Among his students were G. Nissky, S. Chuykov, E. Levina-Rozengolts, N. Romadin, P. Falbov , V. Ostroumov and others. He worked at the college on the issues of art and the art industry in Moscow.

He taught for a short time at the Vitebsk Art School

He taught for a short time at the Vitebsk Art School; after that, some of his students, including his future wife Raisa Idelson, followed him to Moscow. He became a member of the “Culture League” – an association formed to support Jewish art, coupled with Yiddish culture. He designed several performances at the Moscow Jewish State Theater.

He was sent abroad

He was sent abroad, where he lived until 1937, mainly worked in Paris. The capital of art (“the world of contracts with marshans and exhibition galleries) was alien to him. He worked a lot, including in Brittany with his son Valery. However, he didn’t even learn to “swim in profitable waters”, unlike Chagall, with whom he met from time to time; he sold few of his paintings. Important events were a collective exhibition at the gallery of Eugene Zack with the participation of Chagall, Larionov, Puni, Soutine and his solo exhibition in the same halls in 1929.

He made a creative tour around Crimea and Central Asia

In France, he met and became friends with famous pilot A. Yumashev, who granted him patronage to receive a workshop (former “jacks” A. Kuprin and V. Rozhdestvensky also helped) upon returning to the USSR the following year. He made a creative tour around Crimea and Central Asia with Yumashev: the pilot gave some lectures and talked about his flight through the North Pole.

Worked as a graphic designer in Moscow

Worked as a graphic designer in Moscow and other state Jewish theaters. Falk held a personal vernissage at the House of Writers. Most of his paintings were landscapes, still lifes and portraits; he painted in a generalized manner, used muted colours.

He was criticized as a “formalist artist”

He was criticized as a “formalist artist”. He worked for the Mossovet Theater. During the Second World War, he lived in evacuation in Bashkiria, then in Central Asian Samarkand, devoting a lot of works to this city. Returning to Moscow, he collaborated with the State Chamber Theater and painted strictly focused portraits of S. Mikhoels and V. Shklovsky.

He created scenography for the Satire Theater

He created scenography for the Satire Theater. Rejected by the official cultural process, he continued to work at the studio, where many young Soviet avant-garde artists came and considered the master to be their teacher. Of the portraits of the last decade, the most famous are the pictures of K. Nekrasova, A. Gabrichevsky.