Amshey Nurenberg

Amshey Nurenberg
A.Nurenberg. 1945. Self-portrait. Paper, Indian ink. 25.5x18.5
Born
Amshey Markovich Nurenberg

April 17, 1887
Elisavetgrad
Died10 January 1979
EducationOdessa School of Arts
MovementSchool of Paris

Amshey Markovich Nurenberg (Russian: Амшей Маркович Нюренберг; April 17, 1887 – 10 January 1979) was a Ukrainian, Russian and Soviet painter, graphic artist, art critic, and memoirist. He was an adherent of the School of Paris.

During his life, Nurenberg worked in different styles—from avant-garde to realism, having always remained faithful to traditions of the School of Paris.

Biography

He was born on 21 April 1887, in Elisavetgrad (now Kropyvnytskyi) in a Jewish family. His parents were fishmongers. Amshey was the eldest of 10 children; one of his brothers, David Devinov [ru], also was an artist. In 1905 he graduated from the Elisavetgrad lycée, where the arts were taught by Ilya Repin's apprentice Feodosiy Kozachinsky.

From 1905 to 1911 he studied at the Odessa School of Arts in the class of Professor Kyriak Kostandi.

From 1911 to 1913 he lived in Paris, where he studied in private art academies. He worked as an art correspondent for a Russian-language newspaper, "Paris Bulletin" (Russian: Парижский вестник, romanized: Parizhskiy vestnik). He shared an atelier with M.Chagall in the phalanstère La Ruche in the Passage de Dantzig.

In 1913 he returned to Elisavetgrad, where he worked as a teacher.

In 1915 he moved to Odessa, where he staged joint exhibitions with a group of modernists called later "Odessa Parisians". He founded the Organisation of the "Society of the Independent", which transformed in 1918 into the "Association of Independent Artists".

In 1915 he married the ballerina Polina Mamicheva (1894–1978).

In 1919 he was appointed the People's Commissar of Arts of Odessa and the head of the Committee for Protecting Artistic and Historic Heritage.

From 1919 to 1920 he was editor-in-chief of the first Soviet newspaper in Elisavetgrad "Red village" (Красная деревня)

In 1920 he moved to Moscow, where he worked in the ROSTA Windows together with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Ivan Maljutin, and Mikhail Cheremnykh; making over 200 posters.

From 1922 to 1924 he was professor of history of Western art at the VKhUTEMAS. In 1923 Nurenberg's daughter Nina was born; she would grow up to be a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater under the stage name Nina Nelina.

From 1923 to 1925 he staged joint exhibitions with the former members of the group Knave of Diamonds (1910–17) and writing the art manifesto for their new society Moscow Painters under the chairmanship of Pyotr Konchalovsky

From 1924 to 1926 he was the first art columnist of the newspaper Pravda.

He was evacuated to Tashkent during World War II, where he worked at the Uzbek Union of Soviet Artists. He returned to Moscow in 1943, where he worked for the Museum of Revolution. He retired in the 1950s. He continued his artistic and literary life, including participation in exhibitions, writing memoirs, and publications in newspapers and journals.

He died on 10 January 1979. He is buried at the Vagankovo cemetery.[1]

A.Nurenberg. 1910. Red sails. Oil on canvas. 68x123 (the title is used by A. Green for the novel "Red sails", 1923)
A.Nurenberg. 1912. The hunt. An antique motive. Oil on canvas. 56x120
A.Nurenberg. 1923. Mosque with a man figure. Oil on canvas. 33x40
А.Nurenberg. 1926. War-disabled. Oil on cartoon. 91x60. Exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, Paris 1927
A.Nurenberg. 1929–1930. Bourgeois swines. Oil on canvas. 63x80. Moscow, Tretyakov Gallery

Works in museums

Exhibitions

Membership in artistic unions

  • 1910, Odessa. Association of South-Russian Artists (ТЮРХ)
  • 1915–18, Odessa. Society of the Independent
  • 1918–19, Odessa. Association of Independent Artists
  • 1921–22, Моscow. New Society of Painting (НОЖ)
  • 1926–27, Моscow. Association of artists of the revolutionary Russia (АХРР)
  • 1932–79, Моscow. Moscow Regional Union of Soviet Artists (МОССХ), later renamed into Moscow Union of Soviet Artists (МССХ), Moscow Department of the Union of Artiststs of the RSFSR (МОСХ РСФСР), and Moscow Department of the Organisation of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR (МОСХ)

Books (Russian)

Notes

  1. ^ Vagankov cemetery

Sources