#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The Norilsk Museum’s art gallery has opened a personal exhibition of paintings and graphics by Alexey Savanin – Heart of Norilsk. The exhibition includes 53 works – portraits, still lifes and landscapes. Many stories reflect the construction of the city and the combine.
Black Blizzard in Norilsk, Spring on Daldykan, Old Town, Nadezhda Under Construction, Icebreaker Zavenyagin, Haraelah – Norilsk residents will see familiar toponyms in the names, and well-recognized places in the paintings.
Before becoming a professional artist, Alexey Savanin worked as a loader and welder at the Norilsk combine, and after graduating from the Institute of Physical Education, he worked as a school teacher. In 1967, he became one of the first graduates of the Nikolay Loy’s famous art studio. Then he worked as a woodcarver in the souvenir shop, and from the 1990s as a restoration artist at the Norilsk Art Gallery. Since 1970, he was a regular participant in city and regional exhibitions, representing the art of northerners at the Central House of Artists in Moscow. Savanin’s works are also known in Dudinka, where he often exhibited.
The painting Shaman is one of the most emotional works of this exhibition. In search of stories, Savanin traveled all over Taimyr, studied the aborigines’ life, met shamans from the ancient Nganasan family of the Kosterkins, and was friends with Taimyr painters Boris Molchanov and Motyumyaku Turdagin.
All his life he was engaged in self-education, learning from great masters. He also received a lot of impressions from communicating with famous people: Vasily Shukshin, Anatoly Papanov, Olga Aroseva, Victor Astafiev. In 2001, the Savanin family moved to Kolchugino, Vladimir region. In Norilsk, paintings by Savanin remained in many homes. His works are not only in the collection of the Norilsk Museum, but also in the Taimyr Museum of Local Lore, as well as in private collections in Russia and abroad.
The exhibition Heart of Norilsk runs until February 25.
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Text: Marina Khoroshevskaya, Photo: Norilsk Museum
