Yevsei Moiseyenko’s painting manages to combine the joy of victory and the pain of loss. The movement in this original pietà ascends chorally, before grinding to a tragic halt: “When we finally won, we felt pain in all its fullness. We understood the cost of our losses … The memories of those who fell have not gone away; they continue to perturb us. Memory is our soul, our conscience … I aspired to depict heroism on a large scale, making the plastics of the figures powerful and the rhythms expressive.”

Moiseyenko Yevsei

Moiseyenko, Yevsei Yevseevich (1916, Uvarovichi (White Russia) - 1988, Leningrad)
Painter, graphic artist, portraitist, landscapist, genre painter, history painter. Studied at the Mikhail Kalinin School of Art and Industry in Moscow (1931-1935) and the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1936-1941, 1945-1947). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1947). Taught at the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1958-89). Professor (1963). People's Artist of the UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS, full member of the Academy of Arts of the UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS. Awarded the Lenin Prize (1974) and the State Prize of the UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS (1983).