Label Text:
According to Russian scholar Aleksandr Parnis, Ermilov executed this model at his request after an idea of the 1920s. The artist was a leading spirit of the post-revolutionary avant-garde in Ukraine, and the shape and colors of the Memorial-Museum clearly reflect his earlier Constructive work. Even in the 1960s Ermilov apparently believed that “Lenin’s epoch was connected to a completely new style of artistic expression.”

Owing to his Communist affiliation, Spanish artist Pablo Picasso was popular with Russian revolutionaries. While his work could not be publicly shown under Stalin—because it did not conform to the positivism of Socialist Realism—it was presented in a solo exhibition in Moscow in 1959. Ermilov learned about Picasso’s art early in his artistic career, and some of his early works resemble Picasso’s.
BJ, 2014

Tags:
sculpture; architecture; monuments; memorials; artists; communism

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2001.563

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.