Pavel Korin is a Russian painter who failed to complete his greatest masterpiece in 30 years

Pavel Dmitrievich Korin is a famous Russian artist of the 20th century, an outstanding master of portraiture. He was also a skilled landscape painter and art restorer. For many years he collected icons and was engaged in teaching work. For a huge contribution to the domestic fine arts, the painter was awarded the title of People’s Artist of the USSR, awarded the Stalin and Lenin Prizes.

Pavel Korin created many beautiful works of art, but his main painting remained unfinished. For 34 years he worked on a large-scale masterpiece “Requiem. Russia is leaving”, making dozens of sketches and portraits of the main characters. However, the snow-white giant canvas measuring 4.5 x 10 meters, stretched on a stretcher, remained untouched by the brush.

Biography

When the boy was 5 years old, his father died suddenly and all the cares for raising his son fell on the shoulders of his mother. Pavel loved to draw from early childhood, and already at the age of eleven he got a job as an assistant in the workshop of the local icon painter Styagov.

Korin turned out to be a very capable student and quickly mastered the basics of painting under the guidance of an experienced teacher. And in 1907, on the recommendation of Styagov, he was accepted to study at the icon painting school at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.

Soon, Pavel began to make copies of Nesterov’s paintings, and later worked with him on the creation of fresco paintings in Moscow churches. After completing his studies at the icon-painting school in 1912, Korin entered the art school, which he graduated with honors four years later and left for the Yaroslavl province to study and restore ancient frescoes in Orthodox churches.

Workshop

After the February Revolution of 1917, the young artist moved to Moscow and settled on the Arbat, setting up his own workshop in a small attic. He had to make a difficult choice between emigration or work under a totalitarian regime. The painter got a teaching job at VKHUTEMAS in order to survive the hungry years of the Civil War. And three years later he married Praskovya Petrova, with whom he lived in a happy but childless marriage until the end of his days.

In the context of the actively unfolding campaign against religion in the USSR, the artist completely switched to a neutral landscape genre. And soon several of his works were bought by the government for the Tretyakov Gallery. This event marked the official recognition of the master’s work by the Soviet authorities and opened up new prospects for him. Korin began to paint portraits of famous compatriots.

The patronage of the famous proletarian writer helped Pavel Dmitrievich get a job as head of the restoration workshop at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Korin turned out to be a very skillful leader and put a lot of effort into saving old paintings. In addition, he created a number of socialist realist frescoes for administrative buildings.

After the Great Patriotic War, Pavel Korin received a new large-scale task from the Moscow city authorities. He was instructed to lead a project to create mosaic panels for the metropolitan metro.

The artist personally designed sketches of several stations.

The authoritative master of painting worked in his studio until the end of his life, creating many paintings of historical and portrait genres. After Stalin’s death, he was finally able to travel abroad and, as part of official cultural delegations, visited several foreign countries. Shortly before his death, the artist was awarded the Order of Lenin in recognition of his outstanding services to Soviet art, and on November 22, 1967, Pavel Korin passed away at the age of 75.