Mukhin Semyon Grigoryevich

Moscow painter Semyon Grigorievich Mukhin (1891-1972) was born at Rogozhskaya outpost in the Old Believer family with six children. He early lost his father and started his working life in 14 years  – first as a stovemaker at the gang, then at the icon shop as a typesetter. Since 1904, he began to paint, but at that time his dream of entering the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was destined to fail. During the First World War, he was a soldier of Zadonskiy 228th Infantry Regiment; after the 1917 revolution, he graduated from the Higher School of Military Camouflage and was sent to the disposal of the Petrograd Military District.

Only in the autumn of 1921, Mukhin was seconded to study at the Higher Art Institute, organized at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He perceived basics of art at G.V.Fedorov and L.S.Popova’s studios, and in 1925, he graduated from the Higher Art Institute being at Mashkov’s studio. Since 1926, the artist presented his paintings at exhibitions of Genesis Art Society, which in those years was attended by Pyotr Konchalovsky, A.V.Kuprin, A.A.Osmerkin sculptor G.I.Motovilov. Art critics immediately released Mukhin among gifted young people of the Genesis.

Mukhin’s works are infused with poetic perception of the world. He is a great master of the landscape, especially architecture. Big cycles of his paintings are devoted to Kolomna and Cyril Belozersky, Uglich and Rostov the Great, Joseph Volokolamsk Monastery and architectural monuments of Moscow, Moscow area and the Pushkin Reserve. The artworks are located in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Penza art gallery named by K.A.Savitskiy.