Boris Ioganson

Boris Ioganson studied at Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Viktor Antonovich Apanovich, Valentin Bernadskii and Mykola Varennia are recorded as having studied under Boris Ioganson. Employment is recorded with Surikov State Academic Institute of Fine Arts. Positions recorded include deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Distinctions recorded are Hero of Socialist Labour, Order of the Badge of Honour, People's Painter of the USSR and Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945".

• Name — Boris Ioganson • Native Name — Борис Иогансон • Born — 13 July 1893 • Birthplace — Moscow, Russian Empire • Died — 25 February 1973 • Place of death — Moscow, Soviet Union • Resting Place — Novodevichy Cemetery • Education — Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture • Style — Socialist realism • Awards — Hero of Socialist Labour Stalin's Prize Order of Lenin Order of the Badge of Honour

Ioganson was born on 25 July 1893 in Moscow. His father's Swedish ancestors Russified the surname "Johansson" into "Ioganson". In 1919-1922 he worked as a stage designer in the theaters of Krasnoyarsk and Alexandria (Kherson province). During the Civil War, he was an officer in the White Army and served with Kolchak. He ended up in a typhoid hospital and, finally, entered the service of the Red Army. According to the memoirs of the artist A. S. Smirnov, who knew the artist, the last, honored officer in the army of Kolchak. Ioganson attended the Moscow School of Art, and studied under Kelin, Kasatkin and Malyutin. He was a member of the Society of Young Artists, where he argued for a complete transference of Russian art to Constructivism. He soon abandoned this cause and took up easel painting. In 1922, he helped found the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, and abruptly transferred into the realm of Socialist Realism. Ioganson's work was inspired by that of Repin, that is exhibiting certain features of Impressionism, and was often narrative in nature. Possibly his best-known work was "Interrogation of the Communists" a piece thoroughly representative of Socialist Realism but with piercing elements of Romanticism, in addition to an exploitation of some elements of Futurism. A sense of theatricality is present in his paintings, probably due to his studies of theater design under Korovin.

1951-1954 — Director of the State Tretyakov Gallery. From 1953 — Vice-president, from January 1957 - Acting President, in 1958-1962 — President of the USSR Academy of Arts. 1954-1957 — Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Union of Painters of the USSR, in 1965-1968 — First Secretary of the Union of Painters of the USSR. From 1962 — Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia “Art of Countries and Peoples of the World”.