ХУДОЖНИК ДАНИИЛ ЧЕРКЕС: ОТ ЮЖНЫХ МОРЕЙ ДО ПОЛЯРНОГО КРАЯ

Abstract

The article explores the life of the Soviet artist Daniil Yakovlevich Cherkes (1899-1971). After graduating from the Vkhutemas (Higher Artisic and Technical Workshops) in 1923, he worked as a set painter and stage artist at the First Theater of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic under the direction of Vsevolod Meyerhold, taking part also in the creation of the first Soviet animated films, and working with graphic media. In the mid-1930s Cherkes started to improve his skills in easel painting. During the World War II, he made agitation posters for the Soviet news agency TASS. Daniil Cherkes traveled a lot and created many accomplished works of art inspired by northern and southern seas, urban architecture, and the grandeur of wild nature. The article discusses six of his Far North landscape paintings in the collection of the Earth Science Museum at Moscow State University. Cherkes created these paintings in 1952-1954 while taking part in trips organized by Moscow State University. He continued his trips to the Arctic and painted its landscapes in the years that followed. The illustrated travel album The Exotic in the Ordinary: From Kerch to Henichesk, published in 1965, was inspired by the painter’s numerous journeys to Crimea after 1950