Oreshnikov, Viktor Mikhailovich

Born Jan. 7 (20), 1904, in Perm’. Soviet painter. People’s Artist of the USSR (1969). Member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1954).

From 1924 to 1927, Oreshnikov studied in Leningrad at VKhUTEIN (Higher Art and Technical Institute). From 1933 to 1936 he was a graduate student of I. I. Brodskii at the Academy of Arts. He has been teaching at the I. E. Repin Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture since 1930; he was appointed rector of the academy in 1953.

Many of Oreshnikov’s works deal with the Revolution. Oreshnikov has also done portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. His works include V. I. Lenin at an Examination at St. Petersburg University (1947, Leningrad State University; State Prize of the USSR, 1948) and At the Headquarters for the Defense of Petrograd (1949, Tret’iakov Gallery; State Prize of the USSR, 1950). His portraits of the performer A. Ia. Shelest (1949), V. V. Lishev (1952), and B. B. Piotrovskii (1970–71) are in the Russian Museum in Leningrad, and his portrait of D. V. Zerkalova (1955) is in the Tret’ iakov Gallery in Moscow. Oreshnikov has been awarded two orders and a number of medals.