Aleksandr Davydovich Drevin (, , 3 July 1889 – 26 February 1938) was a Latvian-Russian painter.

Biography

Drevin was born in

Cēsis Cēsis (; (, , , ) is a town in Latvia located in the northern part of the Central Vidzeme Upland. Cēsis is on the Gauja River valley, and is built on a series of ridges above the river, overlooking the woods below. Cēsis was selected to b ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

, then a part of

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. He attended art school in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

under

Vilhelms Purvītis Vilhelms Purvītis (3 March 1872 – 14 January 1945) was a landscape painter and educator who founded the Latvian Academy of Art and was its rector from 1919 to 1934. Biography Vilhems Purvītis was born in Zaube Parish (now Cēsis Munici ...

, thus initially adapting the style of

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painting, and first came to Moscow in 1914. He studied under

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin Kuzma Sergeyevich Petrov-Vodkin, (; November 5, Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/> O. S. 24 October1878 – February 15, 1939) was a Russian and USSR">Soviet painter. His early iconographic work used special creative effects ...

. Since 1917 he worked in the Fine Arts Department of the People's Commissariat of Education. Drevin was part of the " Green Flower" association of avant-garde artists, notably with

Konrāds Ubāns Konrāds Ubāns (December 31, 1893 – August 30, 1981) was a Latvian painter from Riga. He studied at the Riga Art School and was one of the founding members of the Riga Artists' Group before becoming a professor at the Art Academy of Latvi ...

, Valdemārs Tone and

Kārlis Johansons Karlis Johansson (16 January 1890 – 18 October 1929) was a Latvian-Soviet avant-garde artist. In 1914 he joined the "Green Flower" (in Latvian: ":lv:Zaļā puķe, Zaļā puķe", in Russian: ":ru:Зелёный цветок, Зелёный ц ...

. Between 1920 and 1921 he was a member of the Inkhuk but later left, together with

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

, Kliunkov, and

Nadezhda Udaltsova Nadezhda Andreevna Udaltsova (, 29 December 1885 – 25 January 1961) was a Russian avant-garde artist ( Cubist, Suprematist), painter and teacher. Early life and education Nadezhda Udaltsova was born in the city of Orel, Russia, on 29 Decembe ...

, because of the Constructivist-Productivist stylistic manifesto urging the rejection of

easel An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, painters traditionally use an easel to support a painting while they work on it, normally stan ...

painting. Drevin became a professor of painting at Vkhutemas. In 1922, he was sent to work the ''First Russian Art Exhibition'' at the Van Diemen Gallery in Berlin. He travelled across

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, to

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

Ural, Altai and

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

creating a series of artworks of the Soviet landscape. These trips where organised and supervised by Soviet art officials. Aleksandr Drevin

Drevin often painted a "brutal primitivism", lacking any political message or any purpose at all. His paintings have been compared to those of

Maurice de Vlaminck Maurice de Vlaminck (; 4 April 1876 - 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were ...

. Drevin's paintings intentionally were empty of illusionism and decorativeness. After a period of constructivist abstract painting, his style became progressively more realistic during the 1920s.

Personal life

He was married to

; their son was Andrey Drevin, born 1921, who became a sculptor. On 17 January 1938, during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, as a part of the so-called " Latvian Operation", Drevin was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

and executed on 26 February at the

Butovo firing range The Butovo Firing Range or Butovo Shooting Range () was an execution site of the Soviet secret police located near Drozhzhino in Leninsky District, Moscow Oblast from 1938 to 1953. Its use for mass execution has been documented; it was prepa ...

near Moscow. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1957.

References

Works cited

*''A History of Painting'', Alan Bird

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drevin, Aleksandr 1889 births 1938 deaths People from Cēsis People from Cēsis county 20th-century Latvian painters Latvian male painters Soviet painters 20th-century Russian painters Russian male painters Academic staff of Vkhutemas Great Purge victims from Latvia