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The 90th Anniversary of the Famous Artist Y.P.Rebrov

June 27, 2019, is the 90^th anniversary of Yury Petrovich Rebrov (1929–2002), the famous graphic, portrait painter and illustrator of the works by M.A.Sholokhov.

Y.P.Rebrov was born in Tomsk, to the family of Cossacks,natives of Kuban. During 1944–1949, he studied in the Alma-Ata Theatre Art School. From 1950, he was a regular correspondent for the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy. The first works of the artist were published in the magazines “Smena”, “Ogonyok”, “Sovetsky Voin”. During 1951–1953, he worked at the Studio of Military Artists named after M.B.Grekov. He was a member of the USSR Union of Artists from 1958. In 1975, he was awarded the title “Honored Artist of the RSFSR”for the outstanding achievements in the visual arts.

Yury Petrovich had illustrated almost all the works by M.A.Sholokhov. He said: “Sholokhov is my favourite writer, I have given him the most part of my heart and, using Sholokhov’s expression, I have “rooted with an umbilical cord” in his personages.

The fate brought Y.P.Rebrov to meet with M.A.Sholokhov in 1956, the day after “Pravda” published “The Fate of a Man”. The publishing house “Molodaya Gvardiya” invited the artist to illustrate the story.

In 1959, Y.P.Rebrov made black-and-white drawings to the chapters of the novel “They Fought for Their Country”. The second version of the series of illustrations made in colourful watercolours was included in the gift edition of the book for the 50^th anniversary of the Victory.

For nearly 10 years Y.P.Rebrov had been working over the illustrations to the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”. Several times he travelled to the Don region, Sholokhov country. He lived in the villages and stanitsas, watched the life of Cossacks, admired the wildlife of the Don country and created a whole pictorial epic relying on his own perception of the novel. The artist said about his work: “…My illustrations are like “parallel sheets” to the works by Sholokhov, my impressions of his heroes. The only thing I limited myself to was my aspiration not to destroy those successful visual images which had already been found by the artists and filmmakers, who worked on the works by Sholokhov”.

Yury Petrovich showed his deep individual, carefully thought-out stylistic and plastic artistic solutions, empathy expressed in a clear emotional-psychological form of representing an image of a person and event, inner culture and human warmth. He was awarded Silver Medal of the USSR Academy of Fine Arts (1969–1970) for the series of illustrations to the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”.

Besides, the artist created one of the best graphic portraits of M.A.Sholokhov and presented it to the writer. The collection of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov contains 184 works by Y.P.Rebrov.

The works by Yury Petrovich were repeatedly demonstrated at the exhibitions in the excursion and exhibition centre “People’s House” of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov. The visitors had an opportunity to appreciate the variety of the artist’s solutions and to read the works by M.A.Sholokhov again.

Marina Debur