The Museum of Russian Impressionism showed the artists of the group with a fatal number

Formally, “Group 13” existed for only three years, from 1929 to 1931, and managed to organize only three exhibitions under its “logo”. But in fact, even after the collapse, each of the artists who united around Vladimir Milashevsky, Daniil Daran and Nikolai Kuzmin retained “style 13”. And years later, its seeds sprouted on the soil that thawed during the thaw years. Among the “thirteen,” the name that is most widely heard is Tatyana Mavrina. However, other authors deserve attention, and their quiet and light style became a special phenomenon of the Soviet era. Probably, for the first time, the history of the artists of “Group 13” can be traced in such detail and completely at a separate exhibition, which opened at the Museum of Russian Impressionism.

In fact, the history of “Group 13” began back in 1927, when three natives of Saratov met in the editorial office of the newspaper “Gudok”, where they got a job as artists. Vladimir Milashevsky, Daniil Daran and Nikolai Kuzmin were slightly over 30. They well remembered the turbulent times of the avant-garde, which by that time had almost disappeared. Everyone had creative experience behind them. Milashevsky, a graduate of the Saratov Bogolyubsky Drawing School, mastered the language of post-impressionism in the studio of Alexei Grot and Eduard Steinberg, studied to be an architect at the Imperial Academy of Arts, studied at the New Art Workshop with Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Alexander Yakovlev and Evgeniy Lanceray, worked as an illustrator and theater artist in Petrograd. Nikolai Kuzmin was more of a poet by nature and as an artist he managed to prove himself in illustration – he started in the symbolist magazine “Vesy” (Bryusov liked his drawings), entered the Academy of Arts, but failed, but he studied at the drawing school of Ivan Bilibin, then painted for magazines “Lukomorye”, “Apollo” and “New Satyricon”. Daniil Daran (Raichman), Milashevsky’s classmate at the Saratov real school, received a lawyer’s profession at the Kiev Institute, but took private drawing lessons.

The Trinity was united not only by Saratov roots and “Gudok”, but also by the First World War. They all went through the front, saw all the horrors of war, and after returning they could hardly understand how they could live as before. They did not believe in the monumental utopia of a bright future, did not try to dream about the best, but decided to write the present and the elusive past and their own fantasies. Around them they gathered graduates of VKHUTEMAS and other, by that time, closed centers of innovative art education. At first they gathered at Kuzmin’s apartment and talked about low and high in art, about trends and time. And then we decided to declare ourselves as a group – to write more from life, reflecting reality.

The name was chosen simply – based on the number of first participants. But there was, of course, a story behind this. They all remembered and experienced a certain influence of Malevich’s exhibition “0.10”, where “Black Square” was first shown, as well as the “Four Arts” association (Milashevsky participated in one of the exhibitions). Several members of that association joined “13” – Yuri Yurkun and his wife Olga Hildebrandt. They were joined by young Muscovites Tatyana Lebedeva (Mavrina), Boris Rybchenkov, Lev Zevin, Nadezhda Kashina and her younger sister Nina with her husband Mikhail Nedbaylo. All of them gravitated towards free natural drawings, which were a counterbalance to the growing fashion for posters. The first exhibition of “Group 13” took place on February 17, 1929 in the Moscow Press House on Nikitsky Boulevard, where the Central House of Journalists is now located. The public received it with a bang, although critics did not write about it. After the exhibition, an article by Sergei Romov appeared, who knew the Parisian school well and guessed its influence on “13” and who later coined the term “socialist realism”.

The first room of the exhibition “13” at the Museum of Russian Impressionism gives an idea of ​​the style of the group. Before us are “flying” sketches of a departing Moscow: here you can find the Sukharev Tower, the Temple of Boris and Gleb, Moscow’s just under construction, the outskirts and old Moscow, much of the architecture of which is about to go under the knife. In the following rooms there are oil paintings, sketches of Kuzmin’s gatherings, portraits of group members and book illustrations, life paintings and fantasy drawings.

It must be said that book graphics, distinguished by their liveliness and softness, became the strong point of the association. And most importantly, it was a subject of debate, because it went against the current fashion for geometry and poster art. In “style 13” one can read glimpses of symbolism and post-impressionism, avant-garde freedom of writing, and a light, often monochrome palette predominates. After the first exhibition there were several more – in the assembly hall of Moscow State University and Narpite. True, at the vernissage in Narpit, artists who broke away from “13” showed their works. After the first success, the participants disagreed, the composition of the association changed, David Burliuk, Alexander Drevin with his wife Nadezhda Udaltsova, Zalman Liberman, Georgy Rublev and others joined the group. “13” gathered dozens of artists around itself.

In 1931, Group 13 was accused of formalism and was liquidated. But the artists remained. Many did not survive the time of repression, such as Drevin and Yurkun, who were shot in 1938. Some went into exile, like Valentin Yustitsky, who after the camps returned to Saratov, where he lived back in the 1920s, and continued to write there under the influence of “13.” The last room of the exhibition, located on the third floor of the museum, shows works from the 1940s to the 1970s. And it becomes obvious that in the most difficult times, artists hid themselves and painted as expected, under the pressure of the situation. But no, no, “style 13” is visible here too. And during the Thaw years, the same free writing that distinguished the artists of the association with a mystical number became the basis for the fresh art of the 1960s.

The story of “13,” if we look at it in detail and destinies, turns out to be fatal and stretched out over decades. Many artists left behind memoirs, where they continued the debate about the meaning and form of art, which began in Nikolai Kuzmin’s apartment in the late 1920s.