Kurzin Mikhail Ivanovich

The painter and drawer Mikhail Kurzin was among the leaders of the Russian avant-garde. He studied at the Kazan Art College (1904-1907), then at the Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under K. Korovin. In 1916 he was mobilized and sent to the frontline. Immediately after the 1917 revolution Mikhail Kurzin co-founded the Altai Art Association in Barnaul, which he was the leading member of, participating in all its exhibitions. In 1919 he was sent to a business trip to Tashkent. In the same year he made a trip to China. Back in Russia, he made a series of stencil pictures titled Chinese Theater. In early 1920s Mikhail Kurzin taught materials technology at the Higher Art and Technical Institute (VHUTEIN) in Moscow and worked together with Vladimir Mayakovsky making the ‘ROSTA Windows’. In 1921 he made a sketching trip to Siberia where he visited several cities. After moving to the Crimea in 1923 Kurzin worked as scene designer for the Simferopol Party School Theater. Together with E. Korovay he made a trip to the Caucasus in 1924. Later on, the artist worked in the Tashkent Sverdlov Theater, taught at an art studio and a technical college. Mikhail Kurzin’s drawings and posters were frequently published in the press throughout the 1920s. In 1927 he joined the New Orient Masters artist group. In 1929 he became chairman of the Tashkent Association of Figurative Art Workers. He joined the Artists’ Union of Uzbekistan in 1946. Mikhail Kurzin’s works are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, in the Uzbek State Museum of Fine Arts, in big regional museums, and in private collections in Russia and abroad.