Marina Uspenskaya

Marina Yevgenyevna Uspenskaya (Russian: Мари́на Евге́ньевна Успе́нская; June 18, 1925–2007) was a prominent Russian book designer and graphics painter.

Biography

Marina Uspenskaya was born in Moscow in 1925. She graduated from the 1905 Art College, where she studied theatre and decorative arts under professor V.A. Shestakov. In 1947 she entered the graphics department of the Surikov Institute in Moscow, where she studied under professor D.E. Dekhtyaryev in the book illustration studio.

Works

After graduation she found her passion and craft: Illustrations for children's books. Throughout her career, she made illustrations for some 200 children's books in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Russia, France, India and Japan. She worked for several of the largest publishing houses in her native country, including "Detskaya Literatura", "Detgiz" and "Malysh". She is particularly famous for her illustrations for classic Russian fairytales, including Ruslan and Lyudmila and Silver Hoof. Marina Evgenevna was one of the anchor artists on the famous children's journal Murzilka from 1958 to the late 1960s. In total, her illustrations have been printed in more than 115 million books and postcards.

Applying watercolour, Indian ink and gouache in warm and gentle colours, she saw daily life through the eyes of a child. Her illustrations are detailed, yet with a simple and very light touch, and she showed the joy of being a child, even in an adult world that you do not always understand.

Marina Evgenevna continued the tradition of her grandfather Vasily Navozov, artist and Academy member, and for many years her life was connected to famous Moscow artist and academician Boris Uspensky. Her art changed over time, but always in her very personal and highly recognisable style. From the late 1960s onwards she moved away from her classical realism into a more expressionistic and symbolic world.

From the late 1980s she watched, and was inspired by, the changes in everyday life happening in the transition from the Soviet Union to the new Russia. This was for example reflected in her colourful, often red or orange, images of the New Russian Women – as she called them – which she boldly and virtuously depicted in scenes from every-day life. Her favourite media in her later years was the colour pencil, with which she depicted daily life in Moscow, be it in the Moscow metro or evenings at the theatre or the ballet.

Bibliography

• 1963 “Children's Books Illustrators” by Ella Gankina, p. 201, 203
• 1977 “Contemporary Children's Books Illustrators”, by Ella Gankina, p. 135, 195
• 1978 The journal “Detskaya Literatura” (August)
• 1997 The journal “Khudozhnik”, volume 4
• 2003 Russian Artists’ Union
• 2004 “XX-XXI Century - Graphics and Oil Painting”, p. 165, 185
• 2008 "Marina Uspenskaya" — Masters of Soviet Art, volume 3 (In English and Russian). Gamborg Gallery.

External links

• Examples of Marina Uspenskaya´s Art

Persondata
Name	Uspenskaya, Marina
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	June 18, 1925
Place of birth
Date of death	2007
Place of death