Asta Brzezitska

Sculptress, applied artist. Born in Moscow in the family of David Goldstein and his artist wife (1912 or 1913). Taught the rudiments of sculpture by her stepfather Isaac Mendelevich (early 1930s). Studied under Boris Lange at the Mikhail Kalinin School of Art and Industry in Moscow (1935–37) and under Alexander Matveyev and Georgy Motovilov at the Moscow Institute of Fine Arts (1938–45). Sculpted a portrait of Admiral Fyodor Ushakov for the Soviet navy (1944). Worked at the Dulyovo Porcelain Factory in Moscow Region (1945–87). Member of the Union of Artists (1946). Collaborated with Pavel Kozhin on majolica sculptures for Taganskaya underground station in Moscow (late 1940s) and the World Festival of Youth and Students in Budapest multi-figured composition (1950). Created porcelain statuettes of famous people, contemporary artists, literary and folklore heroes, members of the various nationalities of the Soviet Union (1950s), genre subjects (1960s), works illustrating Alexander Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades, The Little Tragedies and Eugene Onegin (1970s), scenes from theatrical and circus performances (1970s–80s) and signs of the Zodiac (1980s). Died in Moscow (2004). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1946). Contributed to All-Union Art Exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1946, 1947, 1955), Travelling Exhibition of Works by Young Soviet Artists at the Georgian Picture Gallery in Tbilisi, Art Salon in Baku, Makhachkala, House of Engineering Technical Workers in Grozny and the Art Salon in Rostov-on-Don (1949), Exhibition of Decorative Arts at the House of the Artist in Moscow (1955), Exhibition of Folk, Applied and Decorative Art of the RSFSR at the Vladimir Lenin Library in Moscow (1956–57), Exhibition of Applied Art on the Occasion of the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Artists at the Vladimir Lenin Library in Moscow (1957), Artistic Porcelain of Dulyovo (1918–63) at the Union of Artists in Moscow (1963), Exhibition of Sculpture at the House of the Artist in Moscow (1957), Exhibition of 13 Moscow Artists in Moscow (1973), Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture in Moscow (1973), II Moscow Ceramics in Moscow (1974), Fairytales in Russia at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg (2000), My Collection by the Elena Zenina Gallery of Arts in the Central House of the Artist at 10 Krymsky Val in Moscow (2011), Exhibition of Folk Applied Art and Industrial Art from the RSFSR in Finland in Helsinki (1954), Expo ‘58 in Brussels (1958), Internationale Ceramiektentoonstelling in Ostend (1959), Mezinárodní výstava sou?asné keramiky in Prague (1962), Quadriennale des Kunsthandwerks sozialistischer Länder in Erfurt (1974) and one-woman shows at the All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art in Moscow (1983), State Museum of Ceramics and the Kuskovo Eighteenth-Century Estate in Moscow (1993), Alexei Bakhrushin Central Museum of the Theatre in Moscow (2012) and Mikhail Vrubel Regional Museum of Fine Arts in Omsk (2012).