Liushin, Vladimir Ivanovich

Vladimir Ivanovich Liushin was a Soviet painter, set designer and a graphic artist. He was a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. In 1913 he began his artistic studies at workshops of the Moscow Stroganov School for Technical Drawing. From 1917 to 1918 Liushin studied at the painting school of the Stroganov. In 1919, the school was nationalized by the Soviets and became GSKhM (State Free Artistic Studios). Liushin also studied under the Russian avant-garde artist Aristarkh Lentulov and under the abstract artist Vasilli Kandinsky. He then continued his education at VKhUTEMAS (Higher Art and Technical Studios) in Moscow where he graduated in 1924. While there, he studied under the noted painter and graphic artist David Petrovich Shterenberg. Liushin was a participant in the First Discussion Exhibition [Pervaia Diskussionnaia vystavka] of the Associations of Active Revolutionary Art held in the Moscow VKhUTEMAS during the spring and summer of 1924.

Liushin was a founding member of OST (Obshchestvo khudozhnikov-stankovistov), the Society of Easel Artists that was formed in 1924. Its members included the avant-garde artists Aleksandr Deineka and Iuri Pimenov. David Shterenberg was the first chairman of OST, and the Society had three inner groups: Projectionism, Concretivism (that included Liushin), and the Group of Three (with Deineka, Pimenov and Andrei Goncharov). Liushin participated in all exhibitions of OST from 1924 to 1928. The early design work of Vladimir Liushin tends to be in line with the designs created by OST members. Following the 1931 split of OST, he joined Izobrigada (Art Brigade). It was disbanded in 1932.

Starting in 1920, Liushin contributed poster designs to the ROSTA (Russian Telegraph Agency) Windows office and later collaborated with the Moscow publishing house of Ogiz-IzoGiz designing posters for anti-religious campaigns, product advertising, sports events and political issues. A few poster titles he designed during 1931 included: "Machine and Tractor Station"; " The Komsomol are the Shock Brigade of the Five-Year Plan”; “Long Live the Red Army - Bulwark of the Peaceful Policy of the Soviets.”

In 1932, Liushin participated in the decoration of Moscow’s Strastnaia Square for the festivities at the completion of the First Five-Year Plan. He also participated in foreign and All-Union exhibitions including: “The Exhibition of Contemporary Art” (1927, Simferopol); “USSR Art and Handicraft Exhibition / Soviet Art Fair” (1929, various U.S. cities); “Art of the Third, Decisive Year of the Five-Year Plan” (1931); “The Poster in the Service of the Five-Year Plan” (1932, Moscow); “Artists of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic over 15 Years” held at the Russian Museum (1933, Leningrad); “15 Years of the Red Army” (1933, Moscow); “Ten Years Without Lenin on the Leninist Path” (1934, Moscow); "Artists in Transport" (1934, Moscow), “Exhibition of ‘Us and Them’ Political Posters and Mass Paintings" (1938, Leningrad), the “All-Union Art Exhibition of the Industry of Socialism" (1939, Moscow), and others.