ArtyAl

Ilya Alekseevich Sokolov (1890 – 1968) is a master of prints recognized in Russian art, known as the author of engravings on domestic and industrial topics, and a series of memorial works dedicated to the figures of the October Revolution of 1917.

• Sokolov attended drawing classes in his childhood. He studied at the Moscow icon-painting workshop for six years. Then he studied in the private studio of Anna Petrovna Bolshakova for drawing and painting. Bolshakova was a Russian artist known for her work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Already at that time, the young artist was interested in Dutch etchings of the 17th century.
• Since 1919, he studied in the painting workshop of Sergei Michajlovic Kolesnikov (1889-1952). This was in Moscow Proletkult, (Proletarian Culture). The organization, established in the Soviet Union in 1917, aimed to offer the foundations for a truly proletarian art.
• In the same year, he moved to the graphic studio. He actively worked in the technique of colour engraving with Vadim Dmitrievich Falileev (1879-1950). In 1921, Sokolov headed the graphic workshop, but a year later he left Proletkult.
• The artist tried himself in various graphic genres and techniques. At an early stage, Sokolov’s work was of a chamber character. But during his mature years, the series he created were large sheets. These series are devoted to workers and the lives of major revolutionaries. They are written in detail with a stroke.
• The life and work of writer Maxim Gorky was a major theme in the work of Sokolov. It opens with a chest portrait of Gorky, engraved in 1939.
• Ilya Alekseevich Sokolov’s work has been offered at auction multiple times. The realized prices range from 210 USD to 611 USD.
• Since 2020 the record price for this artist at auction is 611 USD for Everything for the front! All for victory!, sold at Sovcom Auction House in 2020.

*(This postcard is part of a vast collection. An artist amassed it over sixty years ago and stored it in a wooden box).