Olga Zhekulina


Olga Anatolyevna Zhekulina was a noted Russian painter and one of the famous Soviet puppeteers.
She was a member of the Moscow Union of Artists.

Biography

Olga Zhekulina was born in 1900 in a noble family. Originally she received art education in the private studio of the famous Russian artist Konstantin Yuon, where she studied until 1917.
In 1918-1921, she studied at the Free Art Studios of Konstantin Korovin. In 1921, she was expelled from Zhekulina Art Workshops for her non-proletarian origin.
Serious creative activity of the artist began at the turn of the 1910s and 20s.
In the 20s Zhekulina participated in the life of the "Fire-color" Association, which also consisted of Arkhipov, Bogorodskiy, Dobuzhinsky, Petrov-Vodkin, Voloshin, and other major artists of the time. The main motives of the artist in painting during this period were - "hut buried in the snow, spring, silver gave summer".
In 1930, she became known for the scenery of "A trivial comedy for serious people" by Oscar Wilde for a branch of the Maly Theater.
After that, she worked for nearly twenty years as the puppet theater artist of the Moscow House of Pioneers.
In the 1950s, She became a member of the Moscow Union of Artists. In the late 1950s Zhekulina working on a major state order: a series of landscapes of the Red Presnya.
In the 1960s, the artist was working on a "Valdai cycle", dedicated to the Russian village.
The artist died in 1973. During her life, the artist created some 200 works.

Family

Her father was a district agronomist, and then a banker. He was repressed.
The older brother Sergey was a professor of psychology. The younger brother Leo was a famous scientist and engineer, author of hundreds of scientific papers. Leo worked with Sergei Korolev.

Works