Alexander Grigoriev

Life & Legacy

Alexander Vladimirovich Grigoriev (Russian: Александр Владимирович Григорьев; 28 May 1891 – 25 August 1961), was a Mari Soviet artist, public figure and academician. He is considered to be the first-renowned and the greatest Mari artist, who contributed to the development and formation of the fine arts in the Mari Territory.
Grigoriev studied at Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture with artists such as Ilya Mashkov and Abram Arkhipov; he travelled throughout the Soviet Union with Ilya Y. Repin, helping great painters as Nicolai Fechin. Grigoriev dedicated his life to art. Following the realism movement, Grigoriev painted genre paintings, portraits, landscapes and still lifes.
Through his national initiatives, Grigoriev became one of the most significant figures of Soviet Art in the 1920s. As founder of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, he influenced the art of the USSR throughout its existence. The A.V. Grigoriev Art and History Museum is part of his legacy; his dream was to make it the "Small Tretyakov Gallery".