Cheremnykh, Mikhail Mikhailovich

Mikhail Mikhailovich Cheremnykh is considered a master of Soviet satirical graphics. Born in Siberia, he relocated to Moscow in 1911 to study painting where he subsequently enrolled in MUZhViZ (Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture). By 1919 he established the ROSTA (Russian Telegraph Agency) artist studio in Moscow and served as its artistic director until 1922, when he co-founded the satirical magazine Krokodil (Crocodile). From 1939 to 1941, the artist worked as a book illustrator and as a set designer. In the theatrical realm, Mikhail Cheremnykh worked in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) for the Academic Maly Opera Theater and in Minsk for the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic State Theater of Opera and Ballet.

When World War II erupted in the Soviet Union in 1941, the artist organized the Moscow TASS (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union) artist studio. He designed its first poster and subsequently contributed to forty more works throughout its history.

Cheremnykh exhibited his work at the following: the First Exhibition of Graphics for the 10th Anniversary of the October Revolution (1927-28, Moscow); the ROSTA Windows Collective (1929), Socialist Construction in Soviet Art (1930-31, Moscow); The Poster in Service of The Five-Year Plan (1932, Moscow), and at other venues in Soviet Union. In 1942 Mikhail Cheremnykh was awarded the Stalin Prize for his art, and in 1952 he was bestowed the title of People’s Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.