Elena Kostenko

Elena Mikhailovna Kostenko was born on 9 August 1926 in Leningrad. Her father, Mikhail Kostenko, was an Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, one of the major organizers of Soviet science.[3]

In 1938, Elena Kostenko entered at the Leningrad Secondary Art School under the All-Russian Academy of Arts, which is trained with a break until 1946.[4] Her teachers were Leonid Ovsyannikov, Alexander Zaytsev, Leonid Sholokhov, Alexander Debler, Vladimir Gorb. Together with Elena Kostenko in Leningrad Secondary Art School studied many well known in the future Russian artists and sculptors including Mikhail Anikushin, Evgenia Antipova, Vladimir Chekalov, Abram Grushko, Iya Venkova, Maya Kopitseva, Anatoli Levitin, Oleg Lomakin, Nina Veselova, Vecheslav Zagonek, Alexei Eriomin, Marina Kozlovskaya, Yuri Tulin, Victor Teterin, and others.[5]

Creative atmosphere that prevailed in those years in Leningrad Secondary Art School, meet the aspirations of its pupils. Teachers inculcate a taste and love for true art, and to get creative impulses of the actual life. This reflected a realistic direction of the Leningrad School of painting.

In 1946, after graduating from Secondary Art School Elena Kostenko enters the first year of painting faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin. She studied of Semion Abugov, Yuri Neprintsev, Mikhail Platunov, Andrei Mylnikov.

In 1952 Elena Kostenko graduated from Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin in Viktor Oreshnikov personal Art Studio, together with Irina Baldina, Boris Lavrenko, Vladimir Chekalov, Boris Korneev, Abram Grushko, Oleg Lomakin, Alexei Eriomin, Marina Kozlovskaya, and well-known other artists. Her graduation work was genre painting "Future Builders. Kindergarten".[6] Close creative communication and friendship with them will remain at Elena Kostenko for many years.

Since 1952, Elena Kostenko begins to participate in art exhibitions of Leningrad artists. Her first exhibition was the demonstration of graduates of Repin Institute of 1952.[7] In the spring of the next year, she participates in citywide "Spring exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1953" with its first independent creative work -"A Portrait of sculptor A. Kryzhanovskaya" (1953). A work has been featured, it was placed in the reproduction of exhibition catalogue.[8]

Since then, the portrait becomes a leading genre for Elena Kostenko. In different years, it carried away working on still lifes, landscapes, genre scenes. But the greatest fame and recognition will receive her portraits of contemporaries – men of science and art, as well as children's images. Among the portraits created by Elena Kostenko in 1950–1970, can be called "Portrait of actress Galina Korotkevich" (1956),[9] "Portrait of A. Shennikov, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR" (1960),[10] "Portrait of P. Baranov, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR" (1961),[11] "Portrait of M. Kostenko, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR" (1963),[12] "Portrait of artist Mikhail Platunov" (1972),[13] "Portrait of Academician V. Sochava" (1976),[14] and others.

During these years, Elena Kostenko many painted children and youth, with interest continuing the theme begun in graduation picture. Among the works created by her "Portrait of schoolgirl Ira Zykova" (1953),[15] "After the Bathing" (1964),[12] "Portrait of Lena Molteninova" (1975),[14] "Katya" (1960) and "Mikhail" (1960),[16] "Friends" (1974),[17] "Morning" (1967),[18] and others.

As models for her portraits Elena Kostenko often elect their relatives, especially her sons Vladimir and Michael. This allows to convey in the work of a special "thrill of life", to achieve full contact between artist and model, as well as of a certain view of man, which in the opinion of Elena Kostenko is the most important in the art of portrait.[19] Among them are works "Offended" (1963),[20] "Winter Morning" (1964), "Portrait of son" (1969), "Students" (1977),[21] fairly attributable to the undoubted success of the author.

Elena Kostenko was a member of Saint Petersburg Union of Artists (before 1992 named as the Leningrad branch of Union of Artists of Russian Federation) since 1953. Her personal exhibitions were in Belgorod (1981, together with Marina Kozlovskaya) and in Leningrad (1986). In 1989–1992 her paintings were exhibited at the exhibitions and auctions of Russian paintings L'Ecole de Leningrad and others in France, Belgium, United Kingdom.

Paintings by Elena Mikhailovna Kostenko reside in Art museums and private collections in the Russia, France, Japan, Italy, in the U.S., England, and throughout the world.

• Leningrad School of Painting
• List of Russian artists
• List of 20th-century Russian painters
• List of painters of Saint Petersburg Union of Artists
• Saint Petersburg Union of Artists

• The Spring Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1953. Catalogue. – Leningrad: Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists, 1953. - p. 6,26.
• The Spring Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1954. Catalogue. – Leningrad: Izogiz, 1954. - p. 12.
• The Fall Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1956. Catalogue. – Leningrad: Leningrad artist, 1958. - p. 14.
• The Fall Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1958. Catalogue. -Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1959. - p. 6.
• Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1960. Exhibition catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1963. - p. 12.
• Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1960. Exhibition catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1961. - p. 22.
• Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1961. Exhibition catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1964. - p. 22.
• The Leningrad Fine Arts Exhibition. - Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1965. - p. 27.
• The Fall Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1968. Catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1971. - p. 9.
• The Spring Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1971. Catalogue. - Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1972. - p. 10.
• Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists dedicated to the 25th Anniversary of the Victory in Great Patriotic war. Catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1972. - p. 7.
• Our Contemporary Exhibition catalogue of works by Leningrad artists of 1971. - Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1972. - p. 13.
• Our Contemporary The Second Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1972. Catalogue. -Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1973. - p. 9.
• Our Contemporary The Third Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1973. Catalogue. -Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1974. - p. 7.
• Exhibitions of Soviet art. Directory. Volume 4. 1948–1953. – Moscow: Soviet Artist, 1973.
• Across the Motherland Exhibition of Leningrad artists. Catalogue. - Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1974. - p. 15.
• Our Contemporary regional exhibition of Leningrad artists of 1975. Catalogue. - Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1980. - p. 17.
• The Fine Arts of Leningrad. Exhibition catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1976. - p. 20.
• The Portrait of Contemporary the Fifth Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1976. Catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1983. - p. 12.
• Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists dedicated to the 60th Anniversary of October Revolution. Catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1982. - p. 15.
• The Fall Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1978. Catalogue. - Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1983. - p. 10.
• Directory of Members of the Union of Artists of USSR. Volume 1. – Moscow: Soviet artist, 1979. - p. 547.
• Regional Exhibition of works by Leningrad artists of 1980. Exhibition catalogue. - Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1983. - p. 15.
• Elena Mikhailovna Kostenko. Exhibition catalogue. – Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1986.
• L' École de Leningrad. Catalogue. – Paris: Drouot Richelieu, 16 June 1989. - p. 48-49.
• L' École de Leningrad. Catalogue. – Paris: Drouot Richelieu, 27 November 1989. - p. 28.
• L' École de Leningrad. Catalogue. – Paris: Drouot Richelieu, 12 Mars 1990. - p. 46-47.
• L' École de Leningrad. Catalogue. – Paris: Drouot Richelieu, 11 June 1990. - p. 26-27.
• L' École de Leningrad. Catalogue. - Paris: Drouot Richelieu, 21 December 1990. - p. 16-17.
• Painture Russe. Catalogue. – Paris: Drouot Richelieu, 18 February 1991. - p. 33-34.
• Painture Russe. Catalogue. - Paris: Drouot Richelieu, 26 April 1991. - p. 8-9.
• Leningrad figuration. Catalogue. - Paris: Drouot Richelieu, 10 June 1991. - p. 10-11.
• Saint-Pétersbourg – Pont-Audemer. Dessins, Gravures, Sculptures et Tableaux du XX siècle du fonds de L' Union des Artistes de Saint-Pétersbourg. – Pont-Audemer: 1994. - p. 71.
• The Leningrad Artists. Paintings of 1950-1980s. Exhibition catalogue. – Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg Union of artists, 1994. - p. 4.
• Lyrical motives in the works of artists of the war generation. Painting, drawings. Exhibition catalogue. – Saint Petersburg: Nikolai Nekrasov Memorial museum, 1995. - p. 4.
• Matthew C. Bown. Dictionary of 20th Century Russian and Soviet Painters 1900-1980s. - London: Izomar, 1998. ISBN 0-9532061-0-6, ISBN 978-0-9532061-0-0.
• Link of Times: 1932–1997. Artists – Members of Saint – Petersburg Union of Artists of Russia. Exhibition catalogue. – Saint – Petersburg: Manezh Central Exhibition Hall, 1997. - p. 289.
• Vern G. Swanson. Soviet Impressionism. – Woodbridge, England: Antique Collectors' Club, 2001. - p. 40,44.
• Sergei V. Ivanov. Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School.- Saint Petersburg: NP-Print Edition, 2007. – p. 9, 15, 362, 389–402, 404–407. ISBN 5-901724-21-6, ISBN 978-5-901724-21-7.
• Anniversary Directory graduates of Saint Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture named after Ilya Repin, Russian Academy of Arts. 1915–2005. - Saint Petersburg: Pervotsvet Publishing House, 2007.- p. 68. ISBN 978-5-903677-01-6.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Elena Kostenko.

• Paintings of Elena Kostenko on VIDEO "Portrait in painting of 1920-1990s. The Leningrad School. Part 2"
• Paintings of Elena Kostenko on VIDEO "Children in Painting of 1950-1980s. The Leningrad School. Part 1"
• Paintings of Elena Kostenko on VIDEO "Children and Youth in Painting of 1950-1980s. The Leningrad School. Part 2"