Avilov, Mikhail Ivanovich

Born Sept. 6 (18), 1882, in St. Petersburg; died Apr. 14, 1954, in Leningrad. Soviet painter, People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1953). Member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1947). Studied at the Academy of Arts from 1904 to 1913 under F. A. Rubeau and N. S. Samokish. Member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (1923).

Avilov painted predominantly battle scenes—for example, Breakthrough on the Polish Front by the First Cavalry Army in 1920 (1928), in Moscow’s Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the USSR, and Single Combat Between Peresvet and Chelubei (1943), in the Russian Museum, Leningrad. (The latter was awarded a State Prize of the USSR in 1946.) Avilov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and a medal.