Exhibition “Heroes Inside Out”

About exhibition

An exhibition of selected academic studies organized on the occasion of the 145th anniversary of Alexey Afanasyevich Kokel. Chuvash visual art traces its origins to Alexey Afanasyevich Kokel, an outstanding artist who became the founder of the national school of painting. He was one of the first to engage with Soviet thematic painting and also the first among Chuvash artists to receive an academic education during the pre-revolutionary years — the first Chuvash graduate of the Imperial (now St. Petersburg) Academy of Arts. The exhibition displays, for the first time, selected double-sided paintings by the artist from the 1900s. The collection of the Chuvash State Art Museum contains more than 20 double-sided paintings by A.A. Kokel. Many of them are connected with his period of study at the Academy of Arts. The exhibition is presented with two double-sided works. The obverse sides are studies of nude male figures executed in 1905–1907, when Alexey Kokel studied in the general classes under the supervision of Professor Ya.F. Tsionglynsky: “Nude Model ‘Fencer’, 1904–1905” and “Seated Nude Male Model, from the Back, 1906–1907.” The works were exhibited in Moscow during the spring–summer 2025 season at the following exhibitions: “Russian Impressionism. Depicting Air” and “Russian Wilds,” organized by the Museum of Russian Impressionism. The reverse sides feature studies of nude female figures made by Alexey Kokel after his transfer to I.E. Repin’s private studio in the spring of 1907.