Pestinsky Boris Vladimirovich

Pestinsky Boris Vladimirovich

1901, Vladivostok – 1943, Tashkent

Painter, graphic artist, pedagogue, a gerontologist. Studied at the Geographical Institute (1920) and the State Free Art Studios/VKhTEMAS/VKhUTEIN (1919–1925) under Dmitry Kadrovsky, Alexander Savinov, Vasily Savinsky and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. His diploma works were Skiers and Dispute (location of both works unknown), as well as Portraits. Contributed to exhibitions (from 1923). Member and exhibitor of the Commune of Artists (1928–1930), Association of Artists of Russia (1928), Guild of Leningrad Artists (1932). Worked as a researcher at the Geographical Institute (1920–1922); a zoologist at the Leningrad Zoological Garden and at the Lakhta Excursion Station; at the Museum of the Nature of the Northern Coast of the Neva Bay; as a graphic designer and illustrator at Krasnaya Gazeta Publishing House and the magazines Vokrug Sveta, Yuny Proletary and Leninskie Iskry.

In March 1932, he was arrested and sentenced to exile in Central Asia for three years (freed 21 March 1935). Lived in Bek Budi (currently the city of Qarshi), and then in Tashkent, where he worked as the head of the herpetology department at the Uzbek Zoological Garden, Scientific Committee Council of Peoples’ Commissars of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Member of the Union of Artists of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (1938). Taught in the Drawing Department, Central Asian Industrial University (1938, assistant, art history, and drawing). Headed the Fine Arts Studio of the Central Palace of Pioneers in Tashkent (1938–1943).