Alexei Zhabsky's Painting "The Bread of War. 1943"

A 1984 oil-on-canvas painting from the series "Children of War". In a dim room with a plank floor a mother stands at a table with a loaf of bread, and around her are gathered six children, nearly all barefoot. They look at the bread, not daring to reach out for it.

Alexei Zhabsky (1933–2008) was born in the village of Alexandrovka in the Kargatsky District of Novosibirsk Oblast and was the second of six children. His father died when the children were small, and their mother raised them alone. Shortly before the war the family moved to Kiselyovsk in the south of Kemerovo Oblast and settled in a small dugout. The "Children of War" series is based on the history of his family; the figures of the mother and children seem translucent from hunger.