Ivan Sorokin

Painter, graphic artist. Born in the village of Gavrilovskoe in Ryazan Province (1922) in the family of Vasily Sorokin (1882–1951) and his wife Anna (1884–1970). Moved with his family to Moscow (1930), where he lived on Second Volkonsky Lane. Attended school at 3 Sadovaya-Samotyochnaya Street, where he was taught drawing by Nikolai Nesterov (1930s). Studied under Vitaly Pochitalov at the Moscow Secondary School of Art at 34 Kalyaev (now Dolgorukov) Street (1939–42), where he won first prize in a painting competition (1940). Evacuated with the school to the village of Voskresenskoe in Bashkiria (1941) and constripted into the Red Army (1942). Graduated with the rank of lieutenant from the Moscow School of Military Engineering in the town of Bolshevo (1943). Served as a demolitions expert on the First Baltic Front (1943–44). Transferred to the Mitrofan Grekov Studio of War Artists (1944) and worked on the frontlines in Leningrad, Finland, Norway, Poland and Germany (1944–45). Studied under Sergei Gerasimov, Igor Grabar and Alexander Deineka at the Moscow Institute of Fine Arts/Vasily Surikov Institute of Art in Moscow (1945–52). Travelled with Vladimir Stozharov to the River Yenisei and River Angara (1953), Far North (1954) and the virgin lands of Kazakhstan (1955). Member of the Union of Artists (from 1955, board secretary 1988–92). Worked with Victor Tsigal in Dagestan (1958–61). Member of the Moscow Barbizon group working at the Dmitry Kardovsky House of Creativity in Pereslavl-Zalessky (1962–64). Travelled with Vladimir Gavrilov to Novgorod and Pskov (mid-1960s) and with Alexei Sokolov to Mordovia (1965). Painted landscapes of Moscow (1964–66), Leningrad, Mikhailovskoe and Boldino (1974–77) and Ferapontovo (1978). Lived and worked with Eduard Bragovsky at his house in Tarusa (1975–76). Visited Italy (1983), France (1983) and Austria (1986). Honoured Artist of the RSFSR (1976), People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1990). Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts (1995), full member of the Russian Academy of Arts (1997). Winner of the Ilya Repin Prize (1980), silver medal of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1988), gold medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (1999) and Moscow Mayor’s Prize for Literature and Art (2000). Died in Moscow (2004). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1944). Contributed to Frontline Studies and Drawings by War Artists of the Grekov Studio at the Art Foundation of the USSR in Moscow (1944), Exhibition of Painting by Moscow Artists at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1954), Exhibition of Works by Young Moscow Artists in the House of the Artist at 20 Kuznetsky Most in Moscow (1954), Exhibition of Painting by a Group of Moscow Artists at Stalin (renamed Izmailovo in 1956) Park in Moscow (1954), Exhibition of Works by Moscow Artists Made on Trips to the Virgin and Fallow Lands in 1954 at the ZiL Palace of Culture in Moscow (1955), Painting and Graphic Art by Moscow Artists at the Central House of Workers of the Arts and the Central House of the Soviet Army in Moscow (1956), Second Exhibition of Works by Young Artists of Moscow and Moscow Region in the House of the Artist and the Union of Artists at 20 Kuznetsky Most in Moscow (1956), Travelling Exhibition of Works by Moscow Artists at the Central House of Workers of the Arts in Moscow, State District Power Plant Club in Kemerovo, House of Culture in Novoorsk, Miner Club in Belovo and Technical House in Kiselyovsk (1956), Third Exhibition of Works by Young Artists of Moscow and Moscow Region at the Union of Artists in Moscow (1957), Socialist Moscow in the Works of Moscow Artists at the House of the Artist, Academy of Arts of the USSR and Union of Artists at 20 Kuznetsky Most and 17 Yermolai Lane in Moscow (1957), International Exhibition of Fine and Applied Art at Gorky Park in Moscow (1957, honorary diploma), Fourth Exhibition of Works by Young Artists of Moscow at the House of the Artist, House of the Union of Artists of the USSR and Gorky Park in Moscow (1958), Monuments of Old Russian Architecture in the Works of Moscow Artists in the Moscow House of the Artist at 11 Kuznetsky Most in Moscow (1965), III Soviet Russia Republican Exhibition at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1967), First Intersectional Exhibition of Works by Moscow Artists in the Moscow House of the Artist at 11 Kuznetsky Most in Moscow (1967), All-Union Jubilee Art Exhibition Dedicated to the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Moscow (1967), Artists of Moscow to the Fiftieth Anniversary of October at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1967), Landscape of Our Motherland in Moscow and across Russia (1970–71), USSR is Our Motherland in Moscow, Chi?in?u, Kiev, Odessa and Baku (1972), V Soviet Russia Republican Exhibition at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1975), Exhibition of Works by Moscow Artists Dedicated to the XXV Communist Party Congress in Moscow (1975), Following the Path of Lenin at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1977), Sixty Years of Great October at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1977), VI Soviet Russia Republican Exhibition at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall, House of the Artist on Kuznetsky Most and Union of Artists at 46 Gorky (now Tver) Street in Moscow (1980), Eduard Bragovsky, Albert Papikian, Ivan Sorokin and Andrei Surovtsev: Retrospective at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1996), Impressionism in Russia at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg (2000), Portraiture in Russia: XX Century at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg (2001–02), Artists on War and Peace at the Fyodor Chaliapin House Museum in Moscow (2005), Realism in the Russian Art of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century from a Private Collection in Moscow at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg (2012), group exhibitions of Soviet artists in West Germany, United States, Greece, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria, Spain and France (1978–90) and one-man shows in Moscow (1980, 1992, 1997, 2012), Pereslavl-Zalessky (1996, 2005, 2012), Tallinn (1997, 2000) and Berlin (1997, 2000).