Lebedev, Boris Ivanovich

Boris Ivanovich Lebedev was a Soviet graphic artist, illustrator, and a poster artist. In 1929 he graduated from the Saratov Art College and soon thereafter, he was granted a position at the newspaper Southern Kazakhstan Pravda. Lebedev also worked at the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda and at the Diafilm (filmstrip) factory. In 1941, Lebedev moved to Penza (in Western Russia) where he was put in charge of running the art department of the Stalinskoye Znamya newspaper. During World War II, he published two art albums, On ushel na Front (He Went to the Front) and Front i tyl (The Front and The Rear). In addition, Lebedev designed posters for the war effort. During the post-war period, Lebedev’s work focused on book illustration. He provided designs for a host of titles released by the state publishing house of the USSR. Lebedev also designed posters during this period such as the 1950 title, Pod znamenem Lenina, pod voditel'stvom Stalina – vpered, k pobede kommunizma! (Under the banner of Lenin, under the leadership of Stalin - forward to the victory of communism!). On the 100th anniversary of the death of the literary critic Vissarion Belinskii (1811-1848), Lebedev created drawings reflecting the life of the famed Russian which were included in the album V.G. Belinskii v zhizni (The Life of V. G. Belinskii). In 1957, Lebedev, Leonard Sergeev and Mark Grinberg formed the Lesergi Collective. The three artists designed posters, postage stamps and postcards. In 1963, Lebedev illustrated Maxim Gorky's essay "V. I. Lenin” and in 1969, he illustrated a book about Lenin's wife, Rasskazy o Nadezhde Konstantinovne Krupskoi (Stories about Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya). In 1980, Boris Ivanovich Lebedev was bestowed the title of People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Published sources from the Soviet-era also cite Lebedev’s birth year as 1912.