page_title: Boris Naumovich Ginsburg
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Boris Naumovich Ginsburg / Work
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Сады цветут. 1960
context_page_description: Boris Naumovich Ginsburg — Soviet painter, graphic artist.
context_section_description: The artist was destined to create his entire legacy in just five years. There was no early, middle or late period in his professional life. This established gradation was compacted into five short years filled with creative search, struggle with humdrum existence, faith in his talent and irrepressible strive for perfection. At the time there were neither monographs nor extensive articles in art journals dedicated to his work, as he was just a budding young artist. All this and recognition, success and fame were just a beckoning alluring dream then. And it all was bound to happen to the artist, as, with his thesis alone, he revealed his great talent to the world. His thesis series of easel graphic works "About People of Work" (1958) demonstrated not only a rather high level of academic proficiency, but also Boris’ own perspective on the obligatory, in those days, depiction of socialist everyday life. He brought a personality to the foreground of his graphic sheet, abandoning the stereotype of portraying "an ordinary soviet man". For the six completed lithographs of the series the artist created numerous sketches, demonstrating a wide variety of the compositional ideas and subject interpretations. Alongside genre drawings, the artist completed portraits in coal, creating an expressive gallery of manly, proud and intellectual images of steelmakers.
  "The New Ukrainian Semiletka Buildings" (1959–1960) is also a lithographic series, created on a commission by the Union of Artists, in which, alongside the key moments of Kremenchug Hydro Electric Station construction, a lot of attention is paid to the rank and file participants of the grandiose building project. In this series the artist emphasizes images of women, as if juxtaposing the beauty and fragility of the female figures with the surrounding construction giants.
  The artist also remained true to the humanistic concept of art in the third lithographic series "The People of Semiletka" (1960–1961). "Reminiscence of the Black Sea" became the most vivid and the most unconventional of the series. Through the prism of his depicting the fishermen's work one could clearly observe the unmistakable romantic notes of the European art tradition.
  Not only was Boris Ginsburg a master of lithography, he also had a perfect command of watercolour technique; he sensed its specificities and masterfully varied intense and serene colours. It gave the artist an opportunity to create, amazing in their execution, watercolours of sea views, piers and ships at anchor. Crimean landscapes always excited Boris’ creative imagination. The biggest attraction for him was the subtle beauty of Koktebel, which had become a magnet for creative circles when Maximillian Voloshyn settled there. The artist's refined personality, as if merging with the translucent watercolours, was expressed in the lyrical landscapes, imbued with gentle crystal fragility.
  Although for the artist the sea was not only primordial beauty imbued with inimitable harmony, but also a dwelling place of the manmade objects- the ships. In depiction of the latter he predominantly employs graphic techniques: coal sketching, graphite pencil, drypoint print, etching and linocut print. He is unsurpassed as regards compositional variations in depicting ships or fishermen's life. Every sheet is representative of the original nonrecurring compositional scheme, the most corresponding to realizing each concrete artistic idea.
  The lyrical nature of the artist's character, to a great extent, defined his perspective on the interpretation of the soviet woman-worker image. Remaining confined to the unavoidable industrial themes of the official commissions, he first and for most emphasizes the femininity in his fish factory workers, helmswomen, attendants and electricians. Even the drab shapelessness of their working uniforms is powerless to conceal it. Every work reveals to the viewer a "soviet Madonna"; slightly mysterious with her hint of a smile and averted daydreaming gaze. Perhaps she is not always beautiful, but inimitably unique, and thusly so attra
caption: Gardens in Bloom. 1960
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