Sergey Konenkov

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Portrait of sculptor Sergey Konenkov, 1947, by Pavel Korin

Sergey Timofeyevich Konenkov (Russian: Сергей Тимофеевич Конёнков; July 10, 1874 – December 9, 1971) was a famous Russian and Soviet sculptor. He was often called "the Russian Rodin".

Born into a poor peasant family, Sergey Konenkov studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. His diploma work - a huge clay statue of Samson tearing the chains - broke most existing laws of academic art and put him at odds with his teachers.

He travelled to Italy, France, Egypt, Greece, and Germany.

During the Russian revolution of 1905 Konenkov was with the workers on the barricades, soon after creating portraits of the heroes of the rebellion in Moscow. Konenkov later supported the Russian Revolution of 1917.

In 1922 Konenkov married Margarita Ivanovna Vorontsova, and in 1923 they travelled to the USA to take part in an exhibition of Russian and Soviet art. The trip was supposed to last for a few months, but Konenkov stayed in the States for 22 years, living and working in New York.

In 1928–1929 the sculptor visits Italy to meet and work on a portrait of the Soviet writer Maksim Gorky. He has a personal exhibition in Rome.

During the American period, Konenkov creates a large body of work focusing on Bible themes, the Apocalypsis. He produces works depicting Jesus Christ, the Christian prophets and apostles.

In 1935 he was commissioned by the Princeton University to do a sculpture of Albert Einstein. It is said that Einstein was interested in the work of the Russian sculptor, but was more focused on his wife, Margarita, who also was acquainted with the Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the American atom bomb”. There have been allegations that Margarita was working in those years for the Soviet Government, but no concrete evidence has been provided to support the theory.

Under direct orders from Stalin in 1945 a ship was sent to New York to bring Konenkov back to the USSR. The sculptor was given a large studio on Gorky street in the centre of Moscow.

Konenkov created sculptures of Aleksandr Pushkin, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Feodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Vladimir Mayakovsky,Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Vasily Surikov, Johann Bach, Paganini, to name a few. He also made wood carved crosses and other pieces for the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow.

Konenkov received numerous Soviet awards, including the golden star of the Hero of Socialist Labour, the order of Lenin and the title Peoples artist of the USSR.

He is buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy Convent.