Leonid Ovsyannikov

Draughtsman, etcher, lithographer, teacher. Cousin of Konstantin Kuznetsov. Born in the family of a rural schoolteacher called Fyodor Ovsyannikov and his wife Elena in the village of Yurino on the River Volga (1880 or 1881). Studied at the Kazan School of Art (1895–1900) and under Dmitry Kardovsky (1901–03) and Johann Wilhelm Mathé (1904) at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1901–09). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Europe (1910). Worked as an engraver (from 1911). Member of the Community of Artists (from 1910), Arkhip Kuinji Society (from 1918) and the Union of Artists (from 1932). Visited Ilya Repin at his Penates estate in Kuokkala (1917). Taught at the Kiev Institute of Architecture (1918–22), Leningrad Technical College of Art and Industry (1926–32, headed the lithographic studio), secondary and higher schools in Leningrad (1932–34), Leningrad Institute of Engineers of Civil Aviation (1934–37), Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Leningrad (1938–60, docent of the department of painting from 1938) and Samarkand (1942–44, professor of the department of drawing from 1942) and the Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Leningrad (1944–60). Etched portraits of Vladimir Lenin (1926), Sergei Kirov (1935) and Ivan Papanin (1939). Drew propaganda leaflets and posters in Leningrad during the Second World War (1941–42). Evacuated to Samarkand (1942) and returned to Leningrad (1944), where he lived at Apartment 4 in House 9 on the 18th Line of Vasilyevsky Island. Wrote the textbooks Engraving on Cardboard (1952) and Basic Information on the Technique of Etching for the First Courses of Graphic Faculties of Art Colleges (1953) and published memoirs of Ilya Repin (1959). Honoured Artist of the RSFSR (1960). Died in Leningrad (1970). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1904). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1904, 1906, 1909), Modern Russian Art at the Kazan School of Art in Kazan (1909), Exhibition of Graphic Arts at the Nadezhda Dobychina Bureau d’Art in Petrograd in St Petersburg (1913), Exhibition of Graphic Arts by Russian and Foreign Artists in the Galerie Clara Lemercier at 8 Saltykov (now Dmitrov) Lane in Moscow (1913), Exhibition of Watercolours, Drawings and Graphic Art by Russian Artists in the Galerie Clara Lemercier at 8 Saltykov (now Dmitrov) Lane in Moscow (1914), Exhibition of Etchings and Engravings by Russian and Foreign Artists in the Galerie Clara Lemercier at 8 Saltykov (now Dmitrov) Lane in Moscow (1915), Exhibition of Pictures by a Group of Petrograd Artists in 1917 at the P. P. Saurov Gallery at 26 Tver Boulevard in Moscow (1917), Arkhip Kuinji Society in Petrograd/Leningrad (1918, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1930), II State Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Kazan (1921), Graphic Art in the USSR (1917–27) at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1927), Jubilee Exhibition of Fine Arts (1917–27) at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1927), Engraving of the USSR Over Ten Years at the State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (1927), Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures: Modern Leningrad Art Groupings in the Moscow-Narva District House of Culture at 4 Stachek Square in Leningrad (1928–29), Coloured Xylography, Its Devices and Possibilities at the State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (1929), Anti-Imperialist Exhibition Dedicated to International Red Day (1 August) at the Park of Culture and Relaxation (now Gorky Park) in Moscow (1931), Exhibition of Portraits and Exhibition of Pictures by the Leningrad Regional House of Artists at the First Five-Year Plan House of Culture in Leningrad (1933), Artists of the RSFSR Over Fifteen Years at the State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (1933–34), Leningrad in the Representations of Contemporary Artists at the Museum of Construction and Municipal Management (former Anichkov Palace) in Leningrad (1934), First Exhibition of Leningrad Artists at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1935), Exhibition of Paintings, Graphic Art and Sculpture Dedicated to Sergei Kirov in the Maxim Gorky Kirov District House of Culture at 2 Stachek Street in Leningrad (1936), Exhibition of Etchings by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1938), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists in Almaty and Stalinabad (1938), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists: Watercolours, Drawings, Graphic Art at the Museum of Ukrainian Art in Kiev (1938), IV Travelling Exhibition of Leningrad Artists at the Lenizo Exhibition Sector in Leningrad (1939), All-Union Exhibition of Young Artists Dedicated to the Twentieth Anniversary of the Komsomol at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1939), Kislovodsk Exhibition of Paintings, Watercolours and Graphic Art by Soviet Artists in Kislovodsk (1939), Exhibition of Works of Graphic Art by Leningrad Artists in Pskov (1940), Works by Leningrad Artists in the Days of the Second World War at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (1942), Exhibition of Studies by Leningrad Artists in 1944: Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Art and Theatre in Leningrad (1945), All-Union Art Exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1946), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1947), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1951), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1952), Spring Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1954), Book and Easel Graphic Art by Leningrad Artists (1953–54) at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1955), Autumn Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists at the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1956), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists Dedicated to the Fortieth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1957), Exhibition of Etching at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1958), All-Union Exhibition of Prints at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1958), Exhibition of Works by Leningrad Artists of 1960 at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1960), I Soviet Russia Republican Exhibition at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1960), Leningrad: Zonal Exhibition at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1964), III Soviet Russia Republican Exhibition at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1967), Fine Art of Leningrad at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow (1976), Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung at the Glaspalast in Munich (1909), Soviet Graphic Art Exhibition at the Bloomsbury Gallery in London (1938) and one-man shows at the Relaxation Room of the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1941) and the Minor Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists in Leningrad (1945).