Mikhail Yakovlevich Budkeev. Biography of the Artist
Born on December, 23rd, 1922 in Ovsyannikovo village of Tselinny district of the Altai Krai. Educated at a studio.Graduated from the Kansk military aviation school, Novosibirsk infantry school. Participated in the Great Patriotic War, severely wounded at the battle of Kursk. After demobilization he worked at the Biysk Drama Theatre as a set designer. Awarded with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class, with medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 1st class, and other awards.Member of the Union of Artists of Russia since 1961. In 1971—1975 he was elected chairman of board of the Altay organization of the Union of Artists, as well as being a delegate at the second and third congresses of the Union of Artists of Russia, fourth and fifth congresses of the Union of Artists of the USSR.
He works in painting, producing thematic landscapes, portraits and still lifes. Has been participating in regional, zone, republican, all-Union and foreign exhibitions since 1949, among them: the Republican art exhibition, 1957, Moscow; the Exhibition of works of artists of Urals, Siberia and the Far East, 1971, Moscow; the All-Union exhibition "Azure roads of the Motherland" 1979; the Exhibition "Altai-Baga-Nur-Gobi", 1984, Moscow; and many others. Member of the Union of Artists since 1961.
2000 — Personal exhibition, Novosibirsk picture gallery, Novosibirsk. 2002 — "Altai-Kuzbass", showrooms of the Union of Artists, Barnaul, Novokuznetsk. 2003 — "Altai-Omsk", showrooms of the Union of Artists, Barnaul, Omsk. 2003 — Ninth regional exhibition, Irkutsk-Tomsk. 2004 — All-Russia exhibition "Russia-10", Central House of Artist, Moscow. 2005 — International art exhibition commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Victory, Central House of Artist, Moscow.
2007 — Awarded the honorary title of "People's Artist of the Russian Federation"
Works by the artist are represented in the Museum of Oriental Peoples, in the State Fine Arts Museum of Altai Krai, in fine art museums of Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and other Siberian cities, as well as in private collections both in Russia and worldwide.
MIKHAIL BUDKEEV, THE PAINTER
"For the 80th anniversary of Mikhail Yakovlevich Budkeev, People's Artist of Russia"
It is no easy task to say a new word in art, it is hard to find one's unique language in painting, especially in the landscape genre with its glorious traditions and remarkable comprehensions of infinitely varied states of nature by many masters of the brush. "After Levitan one can't paint landscapes anymore!" – quoth painter Malyavin. This reverential attitude towards heart-touching works by Savrasov, Levitan, Nesterov and towards all art exhibited for example in Tretyakov picture gallery, is kept at heart by our contemporary – Altai artist M.Ya. Budkeev. And here we are at his exhibition. Our gaze, gradually delivered from haphazard rhythms of urban rush and bleak daily drudgery, becomes more focused and penetrating, it betrays surprise, the joy of recognition and discovery in well-known themes of fresh fascination, of vital force. Mountains, horses, lakes, streets and houses of a provincial town, valleys again, a white horse on white snow, the vast Mongolian steppe, blossoming bergenias and a horseman in the steppe – how simple and good this world is! It was discovered and recreated in plastic painted images by M.Ya. Budkeev. And thus he left his mark on art. No doubt, the work of Mikhail Yakovlevich Budkeev enriched the art scene of Altai with new themes and impressions, with new artistic experience resting upon direct perception of the surrounding world. Works of the artist face the modernity; lives of people and sights of Nature are seen in M.Ya. Budkeev's works refracted through his personal lyrical and poetical worldview. M.Ya. Budkeev stands together with those realists whose creative method is best described by the words of Emile Zola: "There is only one way to define a work of art – it is a piece of reality seen through temperament". On a different occasion the novelist will put it differently: "A work of art is a corner of the universe seen through temperament". Both definitions are applicable to M.Ya. Budkeev's works because attentive and precise is the gaze of the artist, and deep is his sincerity in grasping the primordial unity of man and nature. Is it not what the exhibition convinces us of? The exposition is compressed time, uncountable moments lived by the author and materialized through painting. It is also a fruit of tireless and fond labour.
The exhibition demonstrates the stepping stones of the painter's creative growth. 1950s, the beginning of 1960s was the time of development of painting technique, formation of unique painting manner, the time of broad and incessant search for the artist's own path in art. Since 1954 M.Ya. Budkeev lives in Barnaul. In 1957 his landscape "Altai. After a Snowfall" was recommended for a republican exhibition. As a lucky time for an artist and as happy days does the painter recall the time at the Art Centre at Baikal and Vyshny Volochek spent with masters of fine arts: S.P. Tkachev, V.M. Sidorov, K.M. Maksimov. Their professional advice and appraisal were useful and important for M.Ya. Budkeev. But lessons of mastery were not painted onto an empty frame – the foundations of the painter's creative method had been laid already by his fate and artistic tradition of his homeland.
M.Ya. Budkeev was born in a peasant family in the old Ovsyannikovo village at the foot of the Salair ridge in the Tselinsky raion of the Altai Krai. Natural beauty, unique lifestyle, natural inclinations awoke a romantic attitude towards the world, formed an integral character. In his peasant youth M.Ya. Budkeev's jobs had names half-forgotten now: "horse driver", "cocklifter"; the painter also remembers all the horses' names from that distant past: "Bast shoe", "Priest's wife", "Piebald" – and each one of those humble laborers evokes a poem of remembrance. An early interest to fine art was not then supported by education and artistic knowledge, for the fate of the future artist was crossed by the Great Patriotic War. M.Ya. Budkeev graduated from Kansk military aviation school, flew missions as a navigator, but his war path started with Novisibirsk military school after which he led a platoon of SMG troops. In April, May, June, July of 1943rd M.Ya. Budkeev was at the front line, drinking from the tragic chalice of trench warfare. In Battle of Kursk the artist was severely wounded and spent more than a year in a hospital of Marshansk near Tambov. In the hospital chamber he met an architect who taught him to draw and gave an advice: "When you demobilize, study to be an artist". In 1946 M.Ya. Budkeev returned home. The art world enticed him. In Biysk it was quite fertile. Among evacuees and exiles one could find remarkable persons – actors, musicians, artists, figures of cinema. Here he gave several years to working as a set designer at the Biysk city drama theatre. The artist remembers with gratitude the creative atmosphere fomented by the theatre artists I.M. Peretolchin, M.P. Smorodkin, urbane and erudite M.Yu. Steger. They worked a lot, under tight deadlines, with inspiration, inventively – when paints ran out they used Prontosil. They were able to soar above the frustrating routine. In Biysk there lived a popular and respected landscape painter D.I. Kuznetsov who revered his teacher, G.I. Gurkin, the father of Altai professional painting. He occupied two small rooms in a communal flat on the second floor of a former merchant's private residence. Young M.Ya. Budkeev was a frequent guest at this flat. It was filled with the spirit of true service to fine art. D.I. Kuznetsov gave Budkeev and his wife, a theatre actess M.I. Burova-Budkeeva two sketches now treasured as a family heirloom. The creative atmosphere at Biysk reinforced the desire to be an artist. M.Ya. Budkeev incorporated artistic and moral traditions of the Russian realist school into his yet fledgling experience. It was natural for M.Ya. Budkeev to be fond of landscapes – the love of nature was preached by D.I. Kuznetsov. The Altai Mountains were sung by G.I. Gurkin, and despite the unavailability of this outstanding landscape painter's works to the public until his rehabilitation, he was remembered an talked about, the public longed to see G.I. Gurkin's paintings. At the start of his creative path M.Ya. Budkeev did not see a single large work by G.I. Gurkin, he only managed to see the master's drawings at the Gorno-Altaysk museum. Nevertheless, the name of the singer of Altai Mountains' beauty has entered the life of the aspiring artist as a symbol of the realistic landscape painting school. Continuity of tradition is characteristic for M.Ya. Budkeev. But without it the establishment of serious creative individuality would be unthinkable. Tradition defined the creative method of M.Ya. Budkeev that is based on systematic and in-depth study of nature.
By the early 1960s the artist has exhibited several Baikal landscapes ("Fishermen Village", "Barguzin", "Angara") and a series of architectural landscapes ("Chapel", "Pskov", "Mirozha Monastery", "Bell tower", "Ivanovo Monastery Cathedral", etc) at regional and other exhibitions.They are painted in broad and free pastose stroke, confidently, with the vivid breath of life. These smaller works are a worthy heritage of the artists's youth, they are an adornment of the exhibition of today. M.Ya. Budkeev's oeuvre includes works implementing the trends of the Soviet painting of the period when exhibition committees and the whole culture system required the artist to produce genre paintings with a theme that unveils the beauty of human labour conquering the Nature. But in M.Ya. Budkeev's works these trends are always tinted with a romantic mood of unity of Man and Nature ("Geologists", "At a Forest Plot", "Fishermen Village"); often these works visibly strive to achieve concrete truthfullness, and an attachment to nature. But already by early 1960s it was clear to anyone interested in art that there arose at Altai a new landscape artist with his own artistic manner. In 1961 M.Ya. Budkeev was admitted to the Union of Artists of Russia. The creative individuality of the artist is especially deeply revealed since mid-1960s when the inevitable happens – the clear river of the Altai Mountains theme flows into the stream of his art. From now on, it becomes the main focus of the painter. In it he finds a richness of colors, motives and topics seen by him alone. M.Ya. Budkeev's characteristic landscapes include genre elements ("With the Fellow-countrymen", "Horse Herds", "At a Maral Sovkhoz Farm", "Two in the Steppe", etc) but most often his genre motifs are non-obtrusive, they simply impart the valley, the steppe, the mountain slopes with marks of time and make them contemporary for us, the spectators. The landscape, the nature, its secluded corners ("Bergenia Blossoms") or its space, vastness, wide expanse, depth ("Ice Floating on Katun", "Aq-Qaya Camp", "In the Mendursakon Valley", "Horse-herder"), river, road motifs are compositionally and coloristically designed to evoke the feeling of surprise meeting with familiar, dear but half-forgotten images, they are completely devoid of intellectuality and frigidity. This feeling is helped to appear by the sketch-like quality of M.Ya. Budkeev's works that are founded in the direct visual impression.
In 1970s the aims of M.Ya. Budkeev's art widen. The creative process as opposed to the end result becomes more and more important. The artist increasingly paints still lifes. M.Ya. Budkeev approached this genre through the landscape worldview. The Object, the Thing is worthy of reproduction not only for its own beauty and significance but for its consanguinity with the undivided natural world. So the limits of the genres erode – a still life in an interior; or a forest glade with a basket of mushrooms; cacti on a windowsill, a window, and a cityscape through the window. Such are "Autumn Still Life ", "Still Life with a Cactus", "Corner in the Attic Floor". There are objects the artist is especially fond of – a samovar, a saddle, a wooden bowl carved by the artist himself. They form a part of the painter's workshop environment. M.Ya. Budkeev's best works have no clear narrative or suspense, and his still lifes are mostly sketch-like. The artist does not attempt to create a special objective-ideal world but expresses his loving and careful outlook of the form, texture, character of the object with all of its vivid concreteness, solving at the same time fascinating and complex painting problems.
A special place is held in M.Ya. Budkeev's oeuvre by the Mongolian theme. Trips to Mongolia were fruitful. The artist was stricken by vast open spaces of the sky and the land, the Gobi desert, and in this vastness – organic life of the horse-herder, the camel caravan driver, the shepherd by a campfire. The Mongolian theme has found reflection in still lifes as well. One after another works appear that were inspired by the vivid and corporeal world of Mongolia ("Horse-herder", "Mongolian Still Life", architectural landscapes). The artist was stricken with the beauty and brightness of national Mongolian costume and everyday objects. He paints several good portrait sketches of girls in national costume, demonstrating a new angle of his creative interests ("Sarantsetseg", "Delgersajhan", "Female Horse-herder"). The exhibition takes us back again to landscapes. Lyricism, lucidity, harmony are the main conditions and moods of M.Ya. Budkeev's landscapes. Especially warm and human are his paintings of horses. It is these works that had brought M.Ya. Budkeev renown in artistic and spectator circles of Siberia. The essence of M.Ya. Budkeev's painting lies in naturality, in discovering nature, in developing vision.
The youth of the artist is linked with creating landscapes of ancient Russian towns and monasteries. Architectural landscape did not become just an episode in the painter's oeuvre. M.Ya. Budkeev authored a series of works on Barnaul. Budkeev's unique style is especially evident in the "Big Water" which depicts a corner of the old city with two-storey wooden merchant residences, board fences, a humped narrow bridge over the overflown Barnaulka river, a horse, passers-by treading in the high water. This landscape is a magnificent stroke of the historical environment of the Siberian city. M.Ya. Budkeev is not indifferent to man-made beauty. He notices rhythms of towers, porches, rhythms of carved wooden platbands and cornices, Barnaul houses on Pushkin, Chekhov, Polzunov streets, cast lions at the estate gates; all these became a part of the painted annals of Barnaul.
It is difficult to define milestone works of M.Ya. Budkeev's career. His path in art is one of growing strength and expressiveness of a single melody rooted in a clear love of life. Love of life, lucid perception of the world, joy of beloved labour, its pleasure, kindness and poetry are expressed in M.Ya. Budkeev's painting quite simply, with a sonorous gamma of colors, naturally and organically. His fate was to be an artist. Michael Yakovlevich Budkeev became one.
Born on December, 23rd, 
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