Lot 273: Arkadii Plastov (1893-1972)

Arkadii Plastov (1893-1972)
Boy in a winter coat
with artist's stamp 'AP' (lower right); further stamped with artist's stamp and the artist's family collection stamp in Russian 'AP/Collection N.P' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas laid down on board
28 x 14 in. (71.1 x 35.6 cm.)
Painted in 1954

Born in Prislonikha into a peasant family, Plastov completed his study at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1917. One of the foremost Socialist realists artists of the Stalin era, he was greatly influenced by the Russian Impressionists such as Abram Arkhipov and Konstantin Korovin. His early works largely concentrated on rural life in the Soviet Union, whereas those that he completed after the Second World War tended to be less propagandistic and more concerned with the daily life in the villages of the Soviet Union.