S.A.M. #9: The Sky of Alexander Deineka:

Next came a number of iconic paintings, each one a ready-made symbol of the Golden Age of Aviation:

Civil Aviation, 1932

Airborne, 1932

Bomber, 1932

Red-Winged Giant, 1937

Gliders in the Sky, another mosaic, for the Mayakovskaya subway station (1938)

Aircraft were an integral part of his wartime art - from 1941 Moscow:

to Berlin on the day of Germany’s surrender:

In 1942, he created one of his most famous and impressive paintings, A Knocked-Down Ace:

Deineka’s art is often compared to the the works of Tullio Crali, the last of the Futurists. The comparisons are for the sake of difference: Crali the Futurist envisioned the conquest of space in 1920s; Deineka the Romantic Realist followed the pace of time to paint his “Conquereors of Space” in 1961, the year of the first manned space flight:

Special thanks to liim.ru and deineka.ru.