Sokolova, Olga Alexandrovna

(b. 1898 Volokolamsk — d. 1991 Moscow)

Painter and graphic artist

1915—1916: Attended the Women’s Higher Courses in Moscow.

1916—1918: Studied at Moscow University (Department of Philology).

1918—1928: Studied at GSKhM (The First State Free Art Studios, renamed in that period in Vkhutemas (The Higher Art and Technical Studios) first, and then in Vkhutein (The Higher Art and Technical Institute)] under I. Mashkov, A. Drevin, N. Udaltsova, and A. Shevchenko.

1928: Member of the Rost [The Growth] group.

1929: Left for Samarkand with her husband. Took part in exhibitions beginning in 1928, including:

1937 — the Uzbekistan exhibition at the House of Scholars in Moscow.

1977 — personal exhibition in Moscow.

“The lessons in composition (with A. Shevchenko] were very interesting. We were assigned not some literary theme, but something like ‘two houses and three trees’ or ‘on the boulevard.’ As I walked from the Higher Art and Technical Studios to my home in Yermolayevsky Lane, I would search for those ‘two or three houses and trees.’ And what I needed to find would suddenly appear. The studio provided a constant training for my eyes and hand and a sort of internal movement in relation to the surface of the canvas. <…>

I would walk around for a long time, looking and searching, when suddenly I would see it, together with the composition. The format, too, and everything was very clear. This is howl spotted a group of poplar trees in Samarkand once, and liked them. I returned the following day, and saw nothing. Again on the third day, and saw them once more…”

Olga Sokolova

G. Roytenberg. Neuzheli kto-to vspomnil, chto my byli… Iz istorii khudozhestvennoy zhizni. 1925—1935 [Can It be that Someone Remembers that we Existed… From the History of Artistic Life: 1925—1935] M.: Galart, 2004. Pp. 177, 429—429.