Konstantin Vasilyevich Kuznetsov

Draughtsman, engraver, painter, illustrator, designer. Cousin of Leonid Ovsyannikov. Born in the family of a timber rafter called Vasily Kuznetsov in the village of Pochinok in Nizhny Novgorod Province (1886). Worked as a clerk in the local timber industry and attended private grammar school (1900s). Studied engraving independently and took private lessons from Leonid Ovsyannikov (1900s). Moved to St Petersburg, where he enrolled at the Psychoneurological Research Institute and studied at the School of Drawing of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (1910–14). Devised his own method of engraving on cardboard. Drew caricatures of actors in theatrical programmes and designed homemade toys (1910–13). Published drawings in New Satyricon (1913). Forced by illness to move to Moscow (1913), Crimea and Pyatigorsk (mid-1910s). Headed the department of glass printing at the Caucasian branch of the Russian Telegraph Agency (late 1910s–early 1920s). Lived in Moscow (from 1922). Took part in an expedition to Novaya Zemlya and the coast of the Arctic Ocean (1923). Collaborated with magazines and publishing houses (1924–43). Illustrated Yakov Meksin’s The Monstrous Mosquito (1924), The Filtchering Feline (1925), The Construction Site (1926), How Papa Carried Tanya (1926), The Little Grey Ducky (1927), Hurly Burly (1928), He Who Dares Eats (1928), Tsar Kartaus (1928), Hang On, Keep Up (1929), Homespun Inventions (1930), Tatties (1930) and Zinka’s Pictures (1930) and Agnia Barto’s The Pioneer (1926), The Toys (1936), Little Stars in the Forest (1936), Two Jotters (1941) and The Torch (1944). Designed over two hundred books, including Vitaly Bianchi’s Mokhnach (1927), Leo Tolstoy’s Filipok (1929), Mikhail Ruderman’s Subbotnik (1931), Alexander Yermakov’s Volodya Yermakov (1935), Hans Christian Andersen’s The Nightingale (1936), Mikhail Lermontov’s Taman (1937), Konstantin Paustovsky’s Summer Days (1937) and The Residents of the Old House (1941), Alexander Pushkin’s The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (1937), The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1939) and Ruslan and Lyudmila (1943), Sergei Aksakov’s The Scarlet Flower (1938), Samuel Marshak’s The Tale of the Silly Little Mouse (1938), Nikolai Nekrasov’s Sasha (1938), Arkady Gaidar’s The Drummer’s Fate (1938, 1939), Mikhail Prishvin’s Tales (1938) and The Fox’s Bread (1941) and Pavel Bazhov’s The Malachite Casket (1944). Headed the children’s art circle of the department for the propaganda of the children’s book at the Museum of Public Education of the RSFSR (first half of 1930s). Collaborated with Ekaterina Sonnenstrahl on I Am A Printer (1932) and illustrated such books and collections of fairytales as Russian Folktales (1935), The Little Speckled Hen (1936), The Magic Swan Geese (1937), The Kolobok (1937), Little Sister Fox and the Grey Wolf (1937), The Turnip (1938), The Fir Tree (1941), New Year (1943), The Winterland Animals (1944) and The Frog Princess (1944). Lithographed works published by the engraving studio of the Moscow Fellowship of Artists, including the fairytales Ivan Tsarevitch and the Grey Wolf, Ivan the Cow’s Son, The Apples of Youth and The Water of Life and Sivka-Burka (1930s), the Old Rus cycle of drawings (1933) and works on the theme of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). Drew cartoons for Vladimir Nemolyaev’s Doctor Dolittle (1938) and Panteleimon Sazonov’s Hit the Beater (1940) and created the humorous series Brehm Inside Out (1939–40) and The Adventures of Babai (1942–43). Died in Moscow (1943). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1910). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Fellowship of Independents (1910–17), I State Free Exhibition of Works of the Arts at the Palace of the Arts (former Winter Palace) in Petrograd (1919), Unification (OBIS) at the History Museum in Moscow (1925), First Exhibition of Graphic Art at the House of Printing in Moscow (1926), Russian Xylography Over Ten Years (1917–27) at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1927), New Means of Manual Printing in Polygraphic Production at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1933), Exhibition of Soviet Coloured Engraving in the State Museum of New Western Art at 21 Kropotkin Street in Moscow (1937), All-Union Exhibition of Children’s Literature and Children’s Book Illustrations at Vsekokhudozhnik in Moscow (1938), Internationale Buchkunst Ausstellung at the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig (1927), Graphic Art of the USSR in Helsinki, Tallinn, Tartu, Stockholm and Gothenburg (1934), Soviet Graphic Art Exhibition at the Bloomsbury Gallery in London (1938), Exhibition of Soviet Graphic Art in the ACA Gallery at 52 West 8th Street in New York (1940) and memorial exhibitions in Moscow (1949) and Yoshkar-Ola (2011).