Russian
and Soviet artist, master of easel and book graphic art.
Kravchenko was born into a peasant family. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1904–1905, 1907–1910), where his teachers were Sergey Ivanov, Konstantin Korovin and Valentin Serov. When due to 1905 events, the Moscow school closed, he continued his studies at Simon Hollosy’s school in Munich (1906). During his student years, one of his landscapes earned him the Isaak Levitan award, later he was praised by Iliya Repin, and enjoyed early success at exhibitions and among collectors. Kravchenko was a member of Tovarishcestvo peredvizhnikov [“The Union of Travelling Artists”] (from 1915) and one of the initiators of the Chetyre iskusstva [“Four Arts”] group (from 1925) which brought together major painters, graphic artists, sculptors, and architects under the slogan of the synthesis of arts. In 1918, first Soviet People’s Commissar of Enlightenment Anatoly Lunacharsky sent him to Saratov to manage the local Art Museum (1918–1921). There he also worked as a stage designer and designer of the so called agitprop mass revolutionary festivities (a portmanteau term from the “Department for Agitation and Propaganda”). In 1919, he started working in xylography and from 1921, mainly used this technique becoming one of the founders of the Soviet school of prints. His recognition as a master of graphic art was marked by the Grand Prix award from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris (1925).
Apart
from producing big thematic prints, Kravchenko worked in petty forms of graphic
art — he cut book plates (ex-libris of A.A. Sidorov), publisher's marks, etc. In
1921, he moved to Moscow and began teaching at the Moscow Institute of Fine
Arts (professor, 1935–1940). At different times, he visited Italy, India,
France, and the USA.
