Nina Vatolina
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Nikolai Denisov (1934–1945)
- Max Avadevich Birshtein (m. 1945)
Nina Vatolina | |
|---|---|
Нина Ватолина | |
| Born | 1915 |
| Died | 2002 (aged 86–87) Moscow, Russia |
| Spouses |
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Nina Nikolaevicha Vatolina (Russian: Нина Николаевна Ватолина; 1915–2002) was a Soviet Russian poster artist. Active from the late 1930s into the 1960s, she has been called "formidably prolific"[1] and credited with "some of the best" Soviet poster design in the era.[2]
Her work is held at the Tate Modern[3] and the Victoria and Albert Museum.[4]
Vatolina was born in Kolomna in 1915.[5] She attended Ogiz Technical School for Arts (1932–1936) and the Moscow Art Institute (1937–1942).[5][6] She also studied under Viktor Deni[5][7] from 1935 to 1939.[6] She had married Deni's son, Nikolai Denisov, in 1934, and the two studied together at the Moscow Art Institute while it was evacuated to Samarkand.[5][6] The two would collaborate on posters for the duration of their marriage.[5][6] Following her graduation, Vatolina returned to Moscow to produce posters, despite discouragement from authorities given the wartime conditions in the region.[5]
Vatolina began making posters in the late 1930s, some of which encouraged participation in elections.[6] During World War II, she and Denisov produced a number of posters for authorities. Her two most famous images, both produced in 1941[2] may be "Ne Boltai!" (English: Don’t Talk! or Don't Chatter!), which discouraged gossip to protect national security, and "Fascism, the Most Evil Enemy of Women", produced in reaction to the Nazi invasion of Russia.[5][7] The poster featured a defiant woman based on Vatolina's neighbor.[7][8] It was reprinted in 1942 to address a potential Nazi invasion of Azerbaijan, with the art undergoing edits to better represent Azerbaijani women.[7] She continued to also work on posters promoting political unity and Stalinism for the remainder of the war.[6][9]
In 1945, Vatolina divorced Denisov and married painter Max Avadevich Birshtein.[5][6]
In the decades after the war, Vatolina produced posters to promote a variety of government initiatives, including those related to agriculture,[5] children's lives and education,[5][6][10] health and eugenics,[1] industrialization and post-war reconstruction,[5][11] international relations,[12][13] and the development of Siberia.[5] According to art critic Evgeny Peremyshlev, Vatolina often based the female figures in her art on herself.[6]
Towards the end of her life, Vatolina said in interviews that she had always preferred painting over her post-World War II poster work, which she had produced out of obligation rather than passion.[5][6]
