Chupyatov Leonid Terentyevich
1890, St Petersburg – December 1941, Leningrad
Painter, graphic artist, theatrical designer, art historian, and teacher. Studied at the School of Drawing, Society for the Encouragement of Arts (1909– 1910), Jan Ciągliński’s studio (1909–1912), simultaneously attended Mikhail Bernstein’s studio (1916); under Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin at Elizaveta Zvantseva’s School of Art (1916–1917); attended Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin’s personal classes at the State Free Art Studios in Petrograd (1918; 1919–1921); Research Workshops of the Academy of Arts/VKhUTEMAS (1922–1926, upon completion presented 30 paintings and the Way of the Genuine Realism in Painting research report).
Contributed to exhibitions (from 1916). Member and exhibitor of the following associations: Jan Ciągliński Workshop (1917), Free Workshop (1917), World of Art (1916–1917), Fire- Colour (1924), Union of Artists (1925–1927, 1929), Union of Modern Masters of Ukraine (1928), Society of Painters (1929–1930). Member of RABIS (from 1922). From 1924 collaborated with various theatres, advisor and later employee of the Bolshoi Drama Theatre (1933–1934, 1935–1941). Artistic director of the Fairy Tale of a Stupid Little Mouse cartoon (1940, Lenfilm).
Professor of the Kiev Art Institute (1926–1928); Painting Faculty, VKhUTEIN/Institute of Proletarian Fine Art (1929–1931, associate professor); Theatre and Painting Department, Painting Faculty, Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture (1932–1933). Died of hunger during the siege of Leningrad. Dmitry Likhachev on the painting “Protection of the Mother of God Over the City Under Siege” (1941, private collection): the Mother of God bows her head and looks down in horror, as if seeing everything that is happening in the dark Leningrad apartments, and extends her veil. On her vestment is an image of an old Russian church… This painting has to survive. The soul of the blockade comes through in it more than anywhere else. The heavens have opened and the dying have seen God.” (quote from “Rakurs Chupyatova”. Exhibition catalogue. Nashi khudozhniki, Moscow, 2013, p. 48).