ZELENSKY Alexey Evgenievich

February 17, 1903 (Tver) — March 19, 1974 (Moscow)

Sculptor, graphic artist, scene-designer

Alexey Zelensky studied at Nizhny Novgorod Art School (1924–1926), later — at the faculty of sculpture at the Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops (VKhUTEMAS) — the Higher Art Technical Institute (VKhUTEIN), under the guidance of V. E. Tatlin, I. M. Chaikov, and V. A. Favorsky in Moscow (1926–1930). In 1930 he performed his graduate work — the project of agitation tribune for the square before Belorussky Railway station.

Zelensky lived in Moscow. He was engaged in monumental, decorative and easel sculpture, and sometimes in small-scale sculpture. The artist used different materials, including experimental ones: plaster, bronze, marble, wood, faience, nacre, forged iron, bone of a mammoth; he often used various combinations of them. In 1934–1935 he worked at Konakovo faience plant named after M. I. Kalinin.

Zelensky painted various portraits: self-portrait, portrait of painter A. V. Shchipitsyn, A. I. Rubleva (all — 1929), portraits of his daughters Natasha (1935) and Sonya (1939, 1946), of M. Y. Lermontov (1940), of the marshal G. K. Zhukov (1942–1944), sculptor N. I. Zhilinskaya (1956), poet V. V. Khlebnikov (1962), the general of the army Kh. U. Mansurov (1969). He also created compositions: At the barricades (1931), Red Navy Man (1931–1933), Set to music by P. I. Tchaikovsky (1937), After Germans’ retreat (Tanya) (1942), Defenders of Russian soil (1947), Rest (Resting swimmer) (1939–1955), Bather (1957).

In 1960s Zelensky created a series of experimental works: Portrait of a man (Experimental decorative head), Fishes and water lilies, Swifts, Falcon and pigeon. Zelensky also worked with small-scale sculpture: studies of nudes (1931), Young woman with falcon (1934), Magpie, Goose (both — 1935), Maternity (1937–1938), Eve (1955), Slipping Venus (1965–1966).

Zelensky performed the projects of many monuments, including the monument to the victims of the Civil War in Chelyabinsk (early 1930s), monument to M. Y. Lermontov (1938), N. V. Gogol (late 1930s), A. M. Gorky (1947 — early 1950s) in Moscow, the monument Bodyguard. The year 1905 near the Krasnopresnenskaya metro station in Moscow (1955), Worker and Kolkhoz Woman for the Soviet pavilion at the World exhibition in Brussels (1958; silver medal), the project of obelisk on the occasion of launching of the first artificial Earth satellite in the Soviet Union (1958; the 2nd prize), arms at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses (1961), the project of design of the experimental district Troparyovo in Moscow (1969).

Zelensky designed a lot of performances, such as The Death of Ivan the Terrible by A. K. Tolstoy at Moscow Art Theatre (MKhAT; 1933), Colas Breugnon (The Craftsman of Clamecy) by D. B. Kabalevsky in the Maly Opera Theatre in Leningrad (1938; together with Y. I. Pimenov). He also drew a series of drawings Victims of War (1942).

Since 1926 Zelensky participated at the 1st exhibition of the Nizhny Novgorod’s branch of the Association of the artists of revolutionary Russia (AKhRR). He was a member of the Society of Russian Sculptors (ORS; 1926–1932). His works were exposed at the exhibition Artists of the RSFSR for 15 years (1932–1934); the exhibition of Moscow sculptors in Leningrad and in Moscow (1937); the exhibition 15 years of the Red Army RKKA (Workers’–Peasants’ Red Army; 1933); the Exhibition of works of artists, sent on a mission through the USSR by the Soviet of the People’s Commissars (1934); the All-Union art exhibitions (1939, 1947, 1957, 1958); the exhibition Moscow artists during the Great Patriotic War (1942); the exhibition Socialist Moscow in works of Moscow painters (1957); the exhibition Physical culture and sport in art (1962); the exhibition Small-scale sculpture (1964); the All-Union exhibition 50 years of soviet art pottery and glass in Moscow (1966) and others.

Zelensky taught at Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts (MIPiDI) in 1945–1947.

Works by Alexey Zelensky are in many private and museum collections, including the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Museum of Ceramics, Kuskovo Museum Estate and others.