Poiter Maltsev

Poiter Maltsev
1907-1993

Poiter Maltsev was born in the town of Mariupol on December 8, 1907. He began his studies at the Art Institute of Zaparozh under the direction of V. Nevskii. He went on to study at the Surikov Institute under the world famous Professors Favorsky and Bruni from 1923-1929. He served in the Army in the Far East together with the great artist Nisky from 1939 to 1940. He was a commander in the War with Finland. He was often seen at the front doing sketches of the battles. One of his favorite subject matters was war scenes. He did his first battle painting After the Retreat of the White Finns in 1941. He was also a commander for the Navy during World War II. The oceanic theme became central to his work. In 1950 he began to work in the studio of the war artist M.B. Gerkov. In 1952, Maltsev did a collaborative diorama with the war artists A. Intezarovii and F. Usypenko called A.V. Suvorov's Alpine Trek. In 1959 he came together with the artists G. Marchenko and N. Prisekin to create another monumental diorama entitled Assault on Sapun Mountain. New military recruits take their oath of allegiance in front of this painting. His other famous dioramas include Exercises of the Black Sea Float in 1967, War Paratroopers in 1942 under Vyazma in 1970 (together with N. Prisekinii), and a panorama from 1982 titled The Crushing Defeat of the German Fascists in the Battle of Stalingrad (with the collective studio of M.B. Grekov). He is the artist of some of the most loved war paintings from the Soviet Union. He has a number of them in important museums and is considered a top-ranking artist in this discipline. Maltsev also created a number of works as gifts to the Soviet delegations from Poland, Chile, Germany, India, France, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Mongolia. He died in Moscow in 1993.