Kronid Gogolev – Russian wood carver

Kronid Gogolev was the famous wood carver, People’s Artist of Russia, laureate of the State Prize of Russia, Honored Worker of Culture and Art of Russia and Karelia. His work focused primarily on Russian north, northern nature, and national life. Wonderful works are real poetic chronicles of the North.
Kronid was born on July 13, 1926 in Novgorod Province into a family of a former priest. At the age of 16 Gogolev went to the front lines. He fought in the battles for the liberation of the Leningrad region, Estonia, East Prussia, and was wounded. After the war he graduated from the Leningrad Pedagogical School of Arts and Graphics and began to create real masterpieces of wood.

Then he came to Karelia and settled in the town of Sortavala in 1961. There he opened an art school for children and had been working as a teacher for 20 years.
Gogolev’s wooden pictures are amazing. With the help of simple tools Kronid could turn rough pieces of wood into masterpieces depicting the life and traditions of the Russian northern village and harsh nature of Ladoga.
We can see a peaceful Karelian village with its original beauty and wise way of life, with its centuries-old traditions, heroes of fairy tales and songs, and unique northern landscapes. The artist could convey the beauty of nature and its unity with a man. Sometimes it seems that the forests and lakes in his pictures come to life.
In 1984 two personal exhibitions of the artist took place in Moscow.
His works are in the Museum of Decorative and Applied Art in Moscow, Polytechnic Museum, the Russian Ethnography Museum in St. Petersburg, the Karelian State Museum, in private collections in America, Japan, Germany, Finland and Sweden.
Known wood carver died on April 10, 2013.
Source: philly.ucoz.ru