Yakov KOZLOV (1918 – 2015)
Yakov Ivanovich Kozlov was born in a humble family of peasants. To hunger and cholera that affected the Volga region in the ’20s, only Yakov and his mother survived. They moved to Saratov, where the mother remarried, and where Kozlov, despite the resistance of the family, studied art. The Academy, at the time, was strongly marked by the influence of Alexey Petrovich Bogolyubov, an important nineteenth-century painter who in Saratov had also founded a museum, and Kozlov enjoyed the benefits of the city’s artistic atmosphere.
After completing his studies, he moved to Leningrad, but the war exploded and Kozlov fought to the front until the end of the conflict. When he returned, to enrich his education, he attended the Academy of Riga, where he studied and worked with Janis Tilbergs. He became a teacher and since 1950 he began his exhibition activity; in 1958 he moved to Moscow and became part of the USSR Artist’s Union.
Landscapes, especially the surroundings of Pereslavl-Zalessky, where Kozlov had a summer dacha, and portraits are his favorite subjects. Some works are dedicated to the war, too, whose experience understandably touched him very much.
MUSEUMS
Riga, Museum of Latvian and Russian Art
Riga, Janis Rainis National Literary Museum
Pereslavl-Zalessky, Museum of Art and History
Mosca, Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation