Alexander V. Kuprin

The recorded working language is Russian. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are landscape. Work by Alexander V. Kuprin is recorded in the collections of Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Yaroslavl Art Museum, Donetsk Regional Museum of Art and Museum Ludwig. Distinctions recorded are Honored art worker of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

• Birth Name — Aleksandr Vasilʹevich Kuprin • Born — Mar. 10 1880 • Birthplace — Borisoglebsk, in present-day Voronezh Oblast • Died — Mar. 18, 1960 • Place of death — Moscow, Russia • Known for — Still-life Painting, Landscapes, Industrial Landscapes • Movement — Knave of Diamonds association Moscow Painters Association Society of Moscow Artists

Aleksandr Kuprin, the child of a district school history and geography teacher, was born in the south of Russia in 1880, in Borisoglebsk, a busy inland port on the Vorona River. As a young man, he took evening classes at the local Society of Art Lovers, while working as a clerk on the railway. He studied in Voronezh (1896–1901). In 1902, he traveled to St. Petersburg to commence formal art training.

• Illustration — Alexander V. Kuprin, Mallows on Black Background (1910)

Kuprin studied in private ateliers for two years in St. Petersburg before moving to Moscow in 1904, where, by 1906, he was enrolled at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture as a student under Abram Arkhipov and Konstantin Korovin, the latter a most noted Russian impressionist. Kuprin's paintings of this period reflect this influence, with their loose brush strokes and emphasis on shadow and light. In 1908, Kuprin was exposed to the new styles of French painting in the private collections of Moscow patrons. By 1910, he had dropped out of school to become one of the founding members of the Knave of Diamonds arts association (Romanized: Bubnovyi Valet). The association's inaugural exhibition was the explosive international height of avant-garde painting of the period, including works by French artists Henri Le Fauconnier, Wassily Kandinsky, and a new generation of paintings by young Russians impatient with old schools of thought.

Kuprin's admiration of Cézanne was very much evident in the paintings he submitted to the 1910 Knave of Diamonds inaugural exhibition (see illustrations, left). His characteristic works of this period combined decorative principles with keen analytical insight into the objects being depicted (Still Life With Blue Tray, 1914; Still Life With a Statuette, 1919; Autumn Bouquet, 1925—all in the Tret’iakov Gallery). These were painting questions that would dominate in his work for the next decade, although, as he continued with these themes, the geometry of his forms is gradually smoothed out. In 1918, Kuprin took a post as professor at Svomas in St. Petersburg and also at the Vkhutemas design school in Moscow (State Higher Arts and Technical Studios), where he would continue as lecturer until 1952. In 1925, he became a member of the Moscow Painters Association, a shift that moved him away from the earlier rebellious associations with the Knave group. • Illustration — Paul Cézanne, Still life (~1890)

Kuprin is recorded as having received Honored art worker of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The identifiers under which Alexander V. Kuprin may be traced in institutional catalogues.