Alexander Kuznetsov

Alexander Grigoryevich Kuznetsov was born in the city of Barnaul in 1957. He graduated from the Altai Art College and later, in 1988, from the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute, where he studied in the studio of Professor Mochalsky. His diploma work, The Last Villagers, was awarded a medal by the Russian Academy of Arts. From 1988 to the present day, he has been teaching at the Surikov Institute, serving as an Associate Professor in the Painting Department and as a member of the Union of Artists of the Russian Federation. He is a regular participant in exhibitions in Russia and abroad.

Kuznetsov is a continuer of the traditions of the Russian school of painting, an heir to the legacy of the great masters of the previous generation. The leading direction of his creative work has become the depiction of his native nature—landscape painting from life, plein-air studies, which can be called both the starting point of the artist’s path and the pinnacle of his art. Neither studio work, nor the copying so essential in the learning process, nor the intellectual and speculative construction of color and tonal relationships can provide the artist with such rich experience and such a variety of coloristic solutions as those gained through attentive observation of natural phenomena.

Kuznetsov’s works are distinguished by an expressive and individual authorial style; they are immediately recognizable. Despite the diversity of the artist’s approaches to interpreting a motif, the landscapes of Alexander Grigoryevich possess characteristic features unique to this painter. Each of Kuznetsov’s canvases becomes a work of art thanks to the organic combination of creative impulse and inspiration with a deep culture of painting and a refined working methodology. These qualities are shaped by the artist’s constant interaction with students, for teaching—while demanding considerable effort—encourages careful analysis of every depicted motif and readiness to clearly demonstrate and explain the specifics of a particular landscape, the state of nature, the construction of the compositional center, tonal relationships, and other components of a painting.