Elena V. Kamyenyetskaya

Exhibitions partial list

Awards:(partial list)

Member of the Soviet Artists' Guild, 1958

Exhibitions:(partial list)

Exhibit of works by Moscow artists, "Land and People"

1953, Exhibit of women artists, Moscow

1953-1980, Frequent participant in spring and fall exhibits of Moscow artists

1954, First exhibit of sketches by young Moscow artists

1954, Exhibit of paintings by young Moscow artists

1954, Exhibit of paintings by Moscow artists

1958, National art exhibit, Moscow

1959, Exhibit of paintings of Moscow artists (for the 21st meeting of the Communist Party of the USSR)

1960, Exhibit of Moscow artists

1960, Exhibit of women artists in Moscow for International Women's Day

1960, Watercolor and ceramics exhibit, Moscow

1962, Exhibit "30 Years of the Moscow Artists' Guild"

1962, Second watercolor and ceramics exhibit of Moscow artists

1962, Exhibit of paintings and sculptures of Moscow artists

1964, Exhibit of Soviet artists in London

1964, Exhibit: "Moscow, the Capital of our Motherland," by Moscow artists

1965, Art exhibit: "Our Homeland"

1967, Exhibit of paintings and graphics by women artists in Moscow, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Soviet power

1969, Exhibit of works by women artists in Moscow, commemorating the International Congress of Women

1970, Exhibit of works by Moscow artists, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth

1972, Exhibit of paintings by artists in the Russian Federation

1972, Solo exhibit of paintings and graphics at the House of Artists, Moscow

1972, Exhibit "Historical Moscow," commemorating the 50th anniversary of Soviet education

1973, "Still Life" Moscow

1975, Group exhibit of nine female artists, commemorating International Women's Day

1975, Exhibit of works by Moscow artists in commemoration of the 25th meeting of the communist party of the USSR

1977, Regional exhibit of works by Moscow artists, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution

1978, Exhibit of works by Moscow artists I. Baenskaya, E. Kamenetskaya, V. Ter-Markaryan, A. Zavyalova, I. Kogan-Mednikova, R. Zelinskaya

1980, Exhibit "Moscow Artists-35 Years of Great Victory"

1980, Republic-wide exhibit "Monuments of our Native Land" in Yaroslavl'

1980, Exhibit of works by Moscow artists, commemorating the 110th anniversary of the birth of Lenin


Additional Information:

The artist Elena Vladimirovna Kamyenyetskaya is known for her landscape paintings, which stand out because of their lyricism and the sincerity of their expressive narrative.

Kamyenyetskaya's art is unique in its textual tricks, and this plasticity is unusually complex, although that isn't immediately apparent, due to the harmonious unity of all the work's components. Looking more closely at the artist's works, one sees her mastery of various tactile media.

Her work also shows the wholeness of form and wonderful purity of tone. The palette, the use of space, and the linear composition are in total harmony. The gradations of color and the rhythm of the brush strokes create a unique music.

One does not usually find stormy displays of nature in Kamyenyetskaya's works, or studies of people in the midst of activity. There is no shimmering lightning, no tractors rolling through fields, no airplanes leaving a trail of white in the pure blue sky. But at the same time, in these works one does not see even a hint of a replicated landscape, an image of copied nature. In every painting we sense the pulse of life, felt and understood by the artist. The flow of life is found in the modest motifs, awakening in a person deep feelings of moral purity, truth, and happiness.

Kamyenyetskaya's paintings are fresh, and her vitality is reflected in them. She doesn't focus on the impetuousness of life, but rather captures on her canvas one moment in nature, which is forever moving and forever changing.

Most frequently, a rich and interesting dialogue between nature and the artist presents itself on the canvas. This dialogue has always been valued by the Moscow Landscapists ("The Moscow Landscape School"), avoiding a materialistic imitation of nature, or a speculative construction of it.

Unfortunately, not all of Kamyenyetskaya's earlier paintings have survived, but, judging from the Moscow city landscape of 1940, even the early ones bore Kamyenyetskaya's trademark style. The landscape is done with reserved coloring. The palette possesses depth. The observer's eye is drawn to the coordinating tones, to the painting's harmony.

This deep concentration and delicate lyricism of feeling result in more dramatic and stern traits in Kamyenyetskaya's works during the war years, as in the portraits of her mother and father, in her self-portrait, and in her interior paintings.

Here too the dynamic of external activity is absent; we have the figure of a seated man in a neutral setting, or an empty room with a modest old shelf. But the artistic expression of space, figures, and subjects themselves is active. Kamyenyetskaya shows the moral side of life and the spiritual atmosphere of this difficult and heroic time.

In the years immediately after the war, most of Kamyenyetskaya's work centers on rural themes, with miserly, stern simplicity of life, highlighting the joy of people encountering long-awaited peace, warmth, sunshine, and spaciousness. There are many colors here, filling all the surrounding space with an appearance of light expectation.

Not much later, Kamyenyetskaya did her Moscow cityscapes, among them the wonderful pond in the garden of ???? in the evening. Here the quietness itself in the serentiry of the water's smoothness is filled with a sense of life's beauty.

Some things are painted in tempera, not densely, but rather in the style of watercolors, transparently and lightly.

In the watercolor paintings, there is a contrast of relatively large colorful masses, immediately giving the space a constructed limit. This is why the painted image gains its lyrical character, preserving the traits of monumentalism.

In general, one can observe that the plasticity of the majority of Kamenetskaya's works is constructed with a combination of linear smoothness and decisiveness of execution, in which soft femininity unites with spiritual strength.

This appears particularly starkly in the modern cityscapes of Moscow, where the artist beautifully succeeds in creating the rhythm of the crowded industrial center of the country.

Despite working principally on rural landscapes, Kamenetskaya is able to simultaneously feel and convey the colorful beauty of the city squares and manmade structures. Some urban painters wouldn't grasp the delicacy and tonal uniqueness of the colors in Tarusa or Msta, but Kamenetskaya poetically conveys the aesthetic individuality of both rural and urban nature. She understands well both the plasticity of the old architecture and its ties with nature. -I. Kuptsov