Irina Borchmann

Painter, graphic artist, designer. Born in the family of Alexander Borchmann in Moscow (23 July 1902). Graduated from grammar school and the Faculty of Pedagogy of Moscow University. Studied art under Victor Shestakov (1921) and Sergei Gerasimov at the VKhUTEMAS (1926–27), in the studios of Ilya Mashkov (1923) and Konstantin Juon (1925) and at the Munich School of Applied Art (1927–30). Studied how to convey movement in drawing at the Institute of Fine Art in Starnberg. Returned to the Soviet Union (1931). Member of the Union of Artists (1934). Worked in the linen industry (before 1941). Arrested as a German national (1941). Sentenced to ten years imprisonment and permanent exile by the special board of the NKVD. Served her sentence in Dolinka of Karlag. Transferred to the village of Prostornoe (1942). Worked as a seamstress, gardener, cook at a sheep farm and stoker. Began to lose her sight (1944). Underwent eight months of treatment and transferred to office work. Took up painting when working for the prison fire section (1948). Painted interiors and the office of the head of the building section. Transferred to Lysaya Gora near Karabas (1950). Exiled to the village of Zhuravlevka in Akmolinsk Region (September 1951). Released (3 April 1956). Rehabilitated (26 May 1956). Returned to Moscow (1956). Reinstated in the Union of Artists. Worked in light industry. Helped to decorate Gorky Park for the International Festival of Youth in Moscow (1957). Designed gobelins (from 1960). Contributed to Moscow, republican, national and international exhibitions (from 1932) and the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris (1937).