Abram Cherkasskii

Born June 25 (July 7), 1886, in Belaia Tserkov’; died Nov. 30, 1967, in Alma-Ata. Soviet painter. People’s Artist of the Kazakh SSR (1963).

Cherkasskii studied at the Kiev Art School under A. A. Murashko from 1901 to 1909 and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts under N. N. Dubovskii, V. E. Savinskii, and Ia. F. Tsionglinskii from 1909 to 1917. He was one of the first in the Ukraine to address the theme of Soviet peasant life (At the Tractor, 1928, Museum of Ukrainian Fine Arts of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev). In 1941 he settled in Kazakhstan. He taught at the N. V. Gogol Art School in Alma-Ata from 1941 to 1958. As both a teacher and an artist, Cherkasskii played an important role in the training of professional Kazakh artists. His pupils included S. Mambeev and K. Tel’zhanov. Cherkasskii painted lyrical and epic landscapes, often executed in broad energetic strokes. His works also include thematic compositions, portraits (People’s Artist of the Kazakh SSR K. U. Badyrov, 1958, T. G. Shevchenko Kazakh Art Gallery, Alma-Ata), and still lifes. Cherkasskii was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor and a medal.