Leonid Tkachenko (artist)
Leonid Anisimovich Tkachenko (; March 28, 1927, Pyatigorsk, USSR) - Soviet, Russian painter, a member of the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists (before 1992 the Leningrad branch of Union of Artists of Russian Federation), living and working in Saint Petersburg, regarded as one of the leading representatives of the "left" wing of the Leningrad school of painting. Biography. Leonid Anisimovich Tkachenko was born March 28, 1927, in Pyatigorsk city, North Caucasus, USSR. In 1950 Leonid Tkachenko graduated from Kharkov Art Institute. In 1950 he moved from Kharkov to Leningrad. Since 1950 Leonid Tkachenko has participated in Art Exhibitions. He  painted portraits, landscapes, genre and abstract compositions, still lifes. Leonid Tkachenko worked in oil painting and watercolor technique. His solo exhibitions were in Leningrad (1983) and Saint Petersburg (1996). In 1950 -1970 Leonid Tkachenko travelled by the virgin lands of Kazakhstan, building of Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam by ancient Russian towns Pskov, Veliky Novgorod, Vladimir, Suzdal and also in Siberia, Middle Asia and Zakarpatye. The expressions from this journeys reflected later in his creation. In the 1960s in art of Leonid Tkachenko took place a gradual changes from academic style and plein air painting to the symbolic compositions and more plastic  expression. There were a growing abstract role of color and rhythm with subsequent release into the space of philosophical tasks of conceptual art in his work. He became the a delegate of the "left wing" of the Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists since that time. Among his works there are ""A Young Azerbaijanian"", ""An Old Azerbaijanian"" (1948), ""For the Great Projects"" (1951). ""1-st Line of Vasilievsky Island"", ""A Rays of Sunset"", ""Kostroma. Winter Evening"", ""The Airplane has Flew"" (all 1955), ""The Year 1917"" (1957), ""May-Day at Vasilievsky Island"" (1958), ""Call of Hiroshima"" (1960), ""Leningrad"" (1961), ""A Fine Day  (1962), ""A Portrait of G. Egoshin, Z. Arshakuni, Y. Krestovsky"" (1968), ""Shah-i-Zinda. Samarkand"", ""Medrese of Abdulla-Khan. Bukhara"", ""A Vase"" (1974), ""Surgeon Amosov"" (1975), ""A Fantasy on the Reminiscence about Dante and Michelangelo"", ""Mayakovsky"" (1976), ""Golden Cactuses"", ""Apples in a Golden Vase"" (both 1977), ""A Concert for the Piano"", ""A Concert with the Ballerina"" (both 1978), ""L. Tolstoy"" (1979), ""Music for the World"", ""Wild Flowers"" (both 1980), ""Still life with Two Cactuses"", ""Still life with Snowdrops"" (both 1981), ""Alexander Block. A Fantasy"" (1982), ""To the Light"" (1985), ""A Composition with Two Candles"" (1988), ""Flying over Triumphal Arch"" (1989 ), ""Logos 1"", ""Destruction of Black Square"" (both 1981) and many others. In 1951 Leonid Tkachenko was admitted to the Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists (since 1992 known as the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists). A solo exhibition of Tkachenko was in Leningrad in 1983. In 1989-1992 his works were demonstrated at auctions and exhibitions of Russian paintings "L' École de Leningrad" at France with great successes. Paintings by Leonid Anisimovich Tkachenko reside in State Russian Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery, in the lot of Art museums and private collections in Russia, USA, China, England, Japan, and other countries. Leonid Tkachenko  was one of the member of the groupe of 11 Leningrad artists (called later as Exhibition of Eleven (Leningrad, 1972)), which was joined for the participation only at two exhibitions: in 1972 and 1976 to showe the creation of the "left wing" of the Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists. There were Valery Vatenin, German Yegoshin, Zaven Arshakuny, Yaroslav Krestovsky, Boris Shamanov, husband and wife Victor Teterin and Evgenia Antipova, Valentina Rakhina, a wife of German Yegoshin, Vitaly Tulenev and sculptor Konstantin Simun. An art-critic Lev Mochalov was supported them.