Evgenia Antipova

Biography

Evgenia Petrovna Antipova was born on October 19, 1917 in Toropets town, Tver Governorate. Her father was a railway office worker. Since 1928 she lived with her parents in Samara on the Volga River. There she began to get busy in an artistic studio under the direction of Pavel Krasnov. From 1935, Antipova lived in Leningrad. In 1936–1939 she studied in the Leningrad Secondary Art School at the All-Russian Academy of Arts. Her teachers were Leonid Ovsyannikov, Alexander Zaytsev, Leonid Sholokhov, Alexander Debler, Vladimir Gorb.

In 1939 Antipova entered the painting department of the Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (since 1944 named after Ilia Repin), where she studied with Semion Abugov, Genrikh Pavlovsky, Alexander Osmerkin, Gleb Savinov, and Vladimir Malagis. In 1939 Antipova at first participated in the All-Union Youth Artistic Exhibition in Moscow, presenting the sketch of work «Valery Chkalov among young people». It was printed in a magazine called the «Young Artist» for 1939.

The start of Operation Barbarossa found Antipova on summer practice in the West Ukraine. With the last echelons she reached Leningrad. On July 28, 1941 Antipova made a match for Jacov Lukash, a fourth-year student of the department of monumental painting. Called up to serve in the Red Army, he perished at the front in May 1942. Up to the beginning of 1942, Antipova remained in blockaded Leningrad. In February 1942, she was evacuated to Novosibirsk, where she lived and worked up to the end of the war. In 1945 she returned to Leningrad and in 1950 graduated from the Repin Institute of Arts in Boris Ioganson's personal art studio (the former studio of Alexander Osmerkin). Her graduate work was a painting named «Andrey Zhdanov visits the Palace of Young Pioneers in Leningrad».

In 1950–1956 Antipova taught painting and composition in Tavricheskaya Art School in Leningrad. Since 1950 she participated in art exhibitions. In 1953 she was accepted in the members of Leningrad Union of Artists. Antipova painted genre and decorative compositions, portraits, landscapes, still life paintings, worked in oils and watercolours. Among her favorite themes and motives were a blossoming apple orchard, a Crimean landscape, a still life in the interior and in the exterior. Among the known paintings of 1950th and beginning of 1960th «Practical exercises» (1953), «Gurzuf in the morning», «A Sea is in Gurzufe» (both 1954), «Still life» (1957), «On a summer residence» (1958), «At the Peter and Paul fortress», «Taffies», «Field flower bouquet» (all 1960), «Apple tree» (1962), «Early breakfast» (1963), «A Girl in the garden» (1964), and others. They give an idea of range of possibilities and direction of creative searches of artist. Antipova gravitated to expression of her individual attitude in themes, not applying on the exhaustive scope of the phenomenas of the life.

In 1960th Antipova tries itself in the series of portraits. Most considerable it is been «A Girl from Pereslavl» and «Waitress» (both 1964). From the end of 1960th leading genres in creation of Antipova were still life in an interior and exterior, and also landscape. The prevailing style of painting is distinguished by several conventional drawing and composition, the interest for the transmission of color and light and air. Among the most known works of this period «City courtyard in Gavan», «Sonth Still life», «Grape Arbor», «Romantic landscape», «A Window. Nasturtiums» (all 1968), «Olives-trees» (1969), «Tulips on a window» (1970), «Pine-trees», «On the Vasilievskiy island» (both 1973), «Still life in the garden. A Spring» (1974), «Still life with Cornflowers and bread» (1975), «Balcony» (1977), «Still life with a Red Bottle» (1979), «Sunny Day» (1982), «Still life with a Spanish Jug» (1985), «Bird cherry tree in flower» (1989), «Blooming Little Apple-tree» (1997), and others. In the still lifes, Antipova increasingly prefer the open composition, placing a table with a bouquet of flowers, or a book in a corner of the garden, among the branches of a blossoming apple or cherry. Her best works of this genre – «A Midday» (1982), «Still Life. Flowering willow, Calla lilies, Daffodils» (1984) – are seen as images of the perfect world in which man finds harmony with nature and in his soul. This is the main theme of her art she continued until her death.

Evgenia Antipova had the personal exhibitions in Leningrad — Saint Petersburg in 1967, 1988, 1999 (all together with her husband, an artist Victor Teterin), and in 2007. In 1989–1992 paintings by Antipova successfully exhibited at the fine art auctions and the exhibitions of Russian paintings L 'École de Leningrad in France. She died on January 27, 2009 in the city of Saint Petersburg, ninety-one years old. Her paintings reside in the State Russian Museum, and in many art museums and private collections in Russia, France, Germany, USA, England and other countries.