The silver age of Russia has presented many great poets, as well as equally talented and outstanding sculptors and architects. One of these is Anna Golubkina, one of the best leading masters of this period in the art world. The traits of impressionism were characteristic of this student of the artist Auguste Rodin, but they did not turn out to be self-sufficient, that is, they did not limit the master to the narrow environment of formal-plastic tasks. In the works of Anna Semenovna Golubkina, social coloring and deep psychologism, drama, sketchiness, traits of symbolism, internal dynamics, a greedy interest in personality and inconsistency in his inner world are obvious.
Sculptor woman
It was not a miracle that this woman became famous. The miracle is that Anna Golubkina managed to become an outstanding sculptor. As you know, in the 19th century it was rather difficult for women to master such a profession.
Recall only the hard way of the generation artist Anna Golubkina - Elizaveta Martynova (who posed for "Lady in Blue"), who entered the Academy of Art in the first year, when the fair sex was allowed to do this. There were about a dozen female students that year, but the teachers looked at them with skepticism. Anna Golubkina studied at this Academy not as a painter, but as a sculptor, and this was considered far from a female occupation.
A family
In addition, the origin played a large role: the girl’s grandfather, the Old Believer, the head of the spiritual Zaraisk community, Polykarp Sidorovich, redeemed himself from serfdom. This man brought up Anna Semenovna Golubkina, in whom her father died too early. Anna's family was engaged in the cultivation of the garden and vegetable garden, and also maintained an inn, but there was only enough money for the education of Brother Semyon. The remaining children in the family, including the future sculptor Anna Golubkina, were self-taught.
Carier start
After the gardener left her native Zaraysk, she went to conquer Moscow. At that time, Anna was already about 25 years old. The girl planned to seriously study the technique of firing, as well as porcelain painting, the training of which took place in the special classes of fine art just equipped by Anatoly Gunst. They didn’t want to take Golubkin, but in one night she fashioned a figure, which was given the name “Praying Old Woman”. After this sculpture, Anna Golubkina was accepted to school.
First trip to the capital of France
The training went well at first. A year later, the girl was transferred to the Moscow School of Painting, where sculpture and architecture were also studied. Then Anna studied for another three years. Finally, the girl reached the top: she got the opportunity to study art at the St. Petersburg Academy.
However, Anna Golubkina spent only a few months within its walls, after which, in 1895, pursuing new goals, she moved to study in France in Paris. However, in a European city, the ladies-artists were also treated rather frivolously: you just need to remember how Maria Bashkirtseva described in her diary of French teachers-snobs.
Here Golubkina was also offered to do salon art, but this was absolutely not suitable for her temperament. But this is not the point of trouble. Although the woman’s friends and her memoirists are silent on this fact, recently, several secrets of Anna Semenovna Golubkina have been unraveled. In France, she became seriously ill. Apparently, unhappy love affected. It was rumored that Anna in Paris met with some French artist. When Golubkina crossed the 30-year milestone in her life, she twice wanted to commit suicide: first, the girl rushed to the Seine, and then tried to poison herself. One famous artist Elizaveta Kruglikova, who also lived in Paris in those years, took the unfortunate woman home. In the Russian capital, Golubkina, upon arrival, goes to the then-famous Korsakov psychiatric clinic. This was the most unpleasant period in the biography of Anna Golubkina.
Anna's recovery
The professor treated the woman for only a few months. It was clear that the healing of the sculptor Anna Semenovna Golubkina was not in medicine, but in the occupation of creativity, or maybe the whole thing was just in occupational therapy. The woman returned to her family in the town of Zaraysk, then, together with her sister Alexandra, who had just completed paramedical courses, Anna went to Siberia - this is where they both work hard at the resettlement center.
The second, already successful, trip to Paris
When the woman regained her peace of mind, she returned to the capital of France in 1897. At this time, Anna finds that person from whom she should have studied earlier - Rodin.
Anna Golubkina presented her first sculpture in 1898 at the Paris Salon (one of the most prestigious art competitions of the time). This sculpture was called "Old Age." For this work, Anna Golubkina was posed by the same middle-aged model, who is depicted on the Rodin statue “That which was beautiful Olmiere” (1885).
The sculptor Golubkina was able to interpret the teacher in her own way. She did this with great success: the woman was awarded a bronze medal meaningful to her, and she was also actively praised in the press. The next year, Anna returns to Russia, where they have already heard about her. Morozov orders the work of Anna Semenovna Golubkina - a relief designed to decorate the Moscow Art Theater. Then the woman created portraits of the most brilliant and popular cultural figures of the Silver Age: A. N. Tolstoy, A. Bely, V. Ivanov. But Chaliapin, the woman refused to sculpt, since she did not like him as a person.
Unsuccessful revolutionary activity
Anna Golubkina was born in a fire, and she herself said that she had the character “fireman”. The woman was uncompromising and intolerant. Injustice in life greatly revolted her. During the revolution of 1905, Anna almost died when she stopped a Cossack horse, which dispersed the workers. Thus began her relationship with the revolutionaries. By their order, Anna Golubkina creates a sculpture - a bust of Marx, also visits secret apartments in those years, makes an appearance for illegal immigrants from a house in Zaraysk.
A few years later, in 1907, Anna was arrested for distributing proclamations and sentenced to a year in prison. However, due to the defendant’s mental state, her case was closed: the woman was released into the wild under police supervision.
Lack of children and husband
How did the girl feel about the absence of children and her husband: how to win or how to lose? Once Anna Golubkina told one girl who wanted to become a writer: if you want something outstanding to come out of your work, you do not need to get married, you do not need to start a family. As Anna said, art does not like bound hands. One must come to art with free hands, ready to create. Art is a feat, you need to forget everything, but in a family a woman is a captive.
However, despite the fact that Golubkina was a free woman and never had children, she loved her nephews very much, and also raised Vera, the daughter of her brother. Among the works of Anna Semenovna Golubkina, the sculpture of Mitya’s nephew, born sick and dead, did not even live up to one year, stands out especially. Anna considered the Motherhood relief to be one of her favorite works. From year to year, she returned to work on this creation.
Golubkina’s pockets were always full of different sweets for children, and in the post-revolutionary time - simple food. Because of the children, Golubkina once nearly died. She sheltered a group of little street children, and these children intoxicated the woman with sleeping pills, and then robbed her.
Moscow exhibition Golubkina
In 1914, the first personal exhibition of 50-year-old Anna Golubkina was officially held. It was organized within the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts (today the Pushkin Museum). The audience literally broke to get to this creative event, the profit from the tickets sold for the exhibition was huge. Anna Golubkina donated the proceeds from the exhibition to help the wounded (after all, the First World War began in these years).
All domestic and foreign critics were in unprecedented enthusiasm for the works of the famous sculptor. But Igor Grabar, who wanted to purchase several sculptures of Anna Golubkina for placement in the Tretyakov Gallery, scolded Golubkina for her excessive pride: the cost of the presented works was too high. As a result, not a single copy was sold from the exhibition.
Civil War Survival
Unfortunately, in 1915, Anna Semenovna Golubkina again suffered a nervous breakdown, as a result of which the woman was admitted to the clinic for treatment. For several years, Golubkina could not create. But in the post-revolutionary months, Anna Semenovna Golubkina is a member of the Commission for the Protection of Antiquities, as well as bodies of the Moscow City Council aimed at combating homelessness (again these children!).
In those terrible years, when Moscow was starving and cold, Anna endured this period absolutely firmly. Her friends said that it was easy for her because the woman was simply accustomed to asceticism and did not even notice the privations. It’s worth adding to all that was said, for the sake of earning money, Golubkina was engaged in painting on fabrics in these difficult years, and she also gave private lessons to aspiring artists. After some time, Golubkina's friends brought her a special drill and began to regularly bring old billiard balls: from these balls (from ivory) Anna made the cameos that she sold.
Relations Golubkina with the Soviet regime
Ignoring the whole revolutionary past, Anna Semenovna Golubkina with the Bolsheviks could not work together. This woman was distinguished by her gloomy character, impracticality, and inability to organize her own affairs. In 1918, Anna Semenovna Golubkina refused to work with the Soviets because of the murder of one of the members of the Provisional Government - Kokoshkin. After some time, perhaps, everything could have been adjusted, but in 1923, at the competition for the best monument to the writer Ostrovsky, Golubkina did not take the leading place, but only the third, for which reason she was very upset.
In the 1920s, Anna Semenovna Golubkina earned a living by teaching. Her health is gradually weakening - Anna's stomach ulcer has sharply worsened, as a result of which she had to be urgently operated on. The last known works of the outstanding sculptor were “Birch”, which is a symbol of youth, as well as a portrait of Leo Tolstoy himself. It is worth paying attention to the fact that Anna Semenovna Golubkina Tolstoy sculpted from her memory, essentially not using the available photographs. Some time before her death, Golubkina returned to her family in the town of Zaraysk. Surrounded by close and dear people, Anna Semenovna Golubkina dies at the age of 63.
The fate of the workshop
What happened to the famous workshop of the outstanding sculptor of the Silver Age? Relatives of Anna Semenovna Golubkina handed over this workshop to the state, as was indicated in her will. About two hundred works were stored in this workshop in those years. After some time, the museum named after Anna Semenovna Golubkina opens in this room. However, in 1952 trouble came. Quite suddenly, during a struggle with either formalism or something else, it turned out that Anna Semenovna Golubkina purposely “distorted” the images of people, including “Soviet” ones. For this reason, the Museum-workshop is closed, and all the works of the famous sculptor are distributed among various museums located in several cities of Russia, including the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery.
