Isaak Brodsky

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Portrait of Isaak Brodsky by Boris Kustodiev, 1920

Isaak Izrailevich Brodskiy (Russian: Исаак Израилевич Бродский, 6 January 1884 [O.S. 25 December 1883] - August 14, 1939, Leningrad) was a Soviet painter, a forefather of socialist realism, famous for his iconic portayals of Lenin and idealized, carefully crafted paintings dedicated to the events of the Russian Civil War and Bolshevik Revolution. Brodskiy was a Honoured Artist of the Russian SFSR and a member of the Union of Russian Artists. He was the first painter to be awarded the Order of Lenin.^[1] In 1934 he was appointed a director of the All-Russian Academy of Arts.

Brodskiy was born in Sofiyevka village in Ukraine. He studied at Odessa Art Academy and the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg and in 1916 became a member of the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of the Arts in the same city. When Brodskiy asked Lenin to autograph his painting Lenin, he said: "I am signing to what I am not agree with for the first time".^[2]