Sergei Maliutin

Born Sept. 22 (Oct. 4), 1859, in Moscow; died there Dec. 6, 1937. Soviet painter and graphic artist.

Maliutin, the son of a merchant, studied under I. M. Prianishnikov and V. E. Makovskii at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture between 1883 and 1886. He taught at the school from 1903 to 1917 and at Vkhutemas (State Higher Arts and Technical Studios) from 1918 to 1923. Maliutin became a member of the Union of Russian Artists in 1903 and joined the peredvizhniki (the “wanderers”—a progressive art movement) in 1915. He was also one of the organizers of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR).

Maliutin’s genre compositions of the 1890’s, which were devoted to the life of the peasants and the urban poor, reflect the socially significant and visually convincing imagery of the peredvizhniki (Halting Place for Transported Convicts on Their Way, 1890; Girlfriends, 1893—both in the Tret’iakov Gallery). The artist’s portraits evolved from the free dynamic technique seen in Self-portrait of 1901 (Tret’iakov Gallery) to the strict graphic manner that characterized most of his works between 1910 and 1930. Some of his more linear works done between 1910 and 1920 were softened by the use of pastels. Maliutin’s graphic approach helped to convey the great artistry or intellectual insight of his sitters (M. V. Nesterov, 1913, Tret’iakov Gallery; K. F. luon, 1914, Tret’iakov Gallery; G. P. Perederii, 1919, Cheliabinsk Municipal Picture Gallery—all are pastels). From 1920 to 1940 the artist did a number of portraits and genre-portraits that reflected the heroism of the first years of the Soviet period (D. A. Furmanov, 1922, Tret’iakov Gallery; The Partisan, 1936, Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Moscow).

Maliutin’s work in book design, the decorative and applied arts, and architecture primarily reveals the romantic national tendencies of the art nouveau style. The artist borrowed elements from the lubok (popular print) and from Russian folk ornament (for example, his illustrations for Pushkin’s King Saltan, published in 1898). Maliutin designed the Teremok (Little Tower) and the theater at Talashkin (1901), as well as Pertsov’s house in Moscow (1910, in collaboration with the architect N. K. Zhukov; sketches of furniture). He also worked for the theater.