Alexander Danilichev

Alexander Danilichev
(1921 - 1994)

Alexander Timofeevich Danilichev was born in Zadanovo Tula in 1921. Danilichev graduated from the Artistic Institute of Moscow in 1937. He studied at the Surikov Institute from 1939 to 1945. In 1943, while still attending the Surikov, Danilichev and 11 other academically accomplished artists were evacuated to Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the duration of the war. It looked like Moscow might fall to the Germans so the Soviet government decided to evacuate their most promising artists who they saw as cultural assets. He returned and received his doctorate at the Surikov Institute in 1947. From the beginning of his studies in fine arts, Alexander stood out as an advanced student with the state permitting his participation in graduate exhibitions, which was simply unheard of. Alexander was very active in Moscow from 1948 when he first began exhibiting. In Spain, during Franco's regime (1939 - 1975), the intelligencia was eliminated. When it was realized that this purge ended Spain's tradition of great art, they asked their Russian neighbor to loan them a master artist to reestablish a great art tradition in their country. Danilichev was the artist sent and is today revered in Spain as Russia's greatest Soviet Era Artist. In 1950 Danilichev was named "Pintor del Pueblo" ("Painter of the People") and again later was named the 32nd "Pintor del Pueblo". He also held the position of dean of the "Pintores del Pueblo" until his death in 1994. Alexander taught at the Surikov Institute as the head of his own studio beginning in 1960. Danilichev is one of the most famous and popular painters of the Soviet Union. Alexander Danilichev died in 1994.