Socialist realist with a capital letter

He has never been in the mainstream of national art — and now destiny has made him almost forgotten. Although Akim Shevchenko was an artist not only with great talent but also a great pedagogical gift. Among his students there are all those who are now considered to be the masters of the Belarusian art school: Mai Dantsig, Mikhail Savitsky, Georgy Poplavsky, Vasily Sharangovich, Viktar Hramyka, and many others. However, the legacy of Shevchenko remained unclaimed for a long time. Art lovers are more familiar with Raftsmen — a canonical work of 1932, presented in all textbooks, successful in every sense, despite the existing situation of that time. The National Art Museum decided to right this injustice and prepared a large retrospective exhibition for the anniversary of the master, whose paintings could become a real gold reserve  for national collectors.

Modesty is also a talent

Surprisingly, the legacy of Akim Shevchenko would be enough for several art exhibitions, but in his entire life, he had only one personal one — in 1962 when he was 60 years old.
“This fact explains a lot,” says Aleksey Matyushonok, curator of the artist’s exhibition at the National Art Museum, “he was modest, and therefore, probably, not very famous. 
Shevchenko never aspired to fame and simply did what he loved and was good at: he was engaged in painting and teaching, went to plein-airs, painted a lot from nature.
He was not into publicity and popularity, he was not an important figure in Soviet art politics. Although he really made a great contribution to the development and formation of the Belarusian fine arts.”
Vladimir Prokoptsov, Director General of the National Art Museum, took care to properly celebrate the artist’s anniversary. Shevchenko is his countryman, also a native of the Dobrush District of the Gomel Region. Moreover, Vladimir did more than just the exhibition project. By the anniversary date, he prepared and published a book about Akim Shevchenko from the series Glorious artists from Belarus. This is a joint project of the National Art Museum and Belarus Publishing House. It contains the entire creative path of the artist: from classes at the Vrubel Studio in the Gomel Palace of Culture of Railway Workers and his studies at the Vkhutemas (Higher Art and Technical Studios) in Moscow to reproductions of the most famous paintings. In 1927, the artist Mikhail Filippovich (today a classic, and at that time also a student of Vkhutemas) selected Shevchenko’s work Lyavonikha for an exhibition in Minsk. 
Five years later, the above-mentioned picture Raftsmen (the second name is Floaters) appeared, to which famous painter Valentin Volkov drew attention. It is noteworthy that at the All-Belarusian Exhibition, where Raftsmen were demonstrated for the first time, more than 1,800 works were presented, but the master drew particular attention to Shevchenko’s painting. Now it is kept in the National Art Museum. 
“In general, we have about 30 works by Akim Shevchenko in our funds,” says Aleksey Matyushonok, “However, only seven of them are exhibited here. Another 23 works were brought from Dobrush, three from the collection of the Belarusian Union of Artists. It is not possible to show all the canvases from our collection: the exhibition space does not make it possible. The audience will definitely see Raftsmen and several other well-known paintings (for example, The Neman River, Defending Minsk), but there will be no Lyavonikha — it is not known where this painting is and who owns it now.”

Realist and dreamer

Shevchenko is also known as the author of a cycle of paintings about our pesnyars (poets) — Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas, Aleksey Matyushonok continues, “One of the paintings, where the poets are depicted together, is kept in the funds of the Union of Artists. We wanted to take it for the exhibition, but the canvas is in poor condition, so we decided to abandon this idea. Nonetheless, there is an opportunity to see the Day of rest — another well-known work of Shevchenko, which is not exhibited so often.”
And one more thing: a large retrospective exhibition dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the artist not only acquaints the audience with Shevchenko again but also presents social realism as art with a capital letter.
“If we want to understand why Shevchenko did not receive such fame as some of his contemporaries, then we must also remember the time of his creative work. He was a solid, great, high-quality artist, but still, one of the socialist realists: each and every artist worked in this direction at that time. In other words, there were many such painters. And after the war, unfortunately, Shevchenko did not make a significant or even debatable work...”
After the end of the Great Patriotic War (Shevchenko was awarded the Order of the Red Star and several medals), he had to start all over again. In 1956, at the invitation of the directorate of the Art School named after A. K. Glebov Akim Mikhailovich moved from Gomel to Minsk. He taught at the Art School until his retirement in 1962. B the way, in retirement he became interested in autolithography. Several of his plates are in the National Art Museum collection.

In addition to the book about Akim Shevchenko, the series Glorious artists from Belarus has been replenished with three more albums dedicated to the artists Aleksandra Posledovich, Mikhail Chepik, and Isaak Borovsky

The exhibition will last till March 13th

By Yuliana Leonovich
Photos by Aleksey Matyush