Vyborg in the life and creative work of the Russian artist Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927)

For the first time in art criticism in this article the author describes in detail the unstudied theme -Vyborg's pages in the creative work of the famous Russian artist, a pupil of I.E. Repin, Boris Mikhai-lovich Kustodiev. In the Vyborg sanatorium "Konkala" Kustodiev spent from May to August 1917, where he was improving his health. According to the recollections of his son Cyril, to Petrograd, the artist was forced to return in a "dog" carriage, it was paid for a chair as for the baggage. During four hours of the journey, B. M. Kustodiev has been painting dogs hooked to the walls of the carriage: a poodle, bulldog, terrier, and hunting - dogs. The modern village of Red Hill, where the sanatorium was located, had the name Konkkala (Fin. Konkkala) until 1948 and that was precisely there, shortly before the outbreak of World War I, where Vyborg architect Clas Axel Gylden has built a building for the sanatorium. In September 1911, famous people were resting there - poet Osip Mandelshtam (he called Konkala "a corner of Finland abandoned by the God"), lawyer Koni, literary historian Bochanovsky. Despite the fact that Kustodiev underwent several operations, since 1916 the artist's legs were paralyzed, he remained forever confined to the chair. However, during this period Kustodiev created the most striking works, filled with endless love to life and a whirlwind of emotions. Portly Russian beauties or an unstoppable Russian Troika would be presented in many of them. It is known there are eight works the artist painted in Konkkala. They are portraits of Grabovskaya, Lopatina, Suvorina, Anita Budengof (Buttenhoff), the painting "On the Bridge" and the sketch of the same name, as well as landscapes of "Konkola (Finland)", "Forest Lake in Konkola". In May 2018 the author of the article has found another Vyborg artist's work "Etude. Konkola The former estate of Budenhof» and has made adjustments into the attribution. In addition, the still-life "Finnish Bouquet" (1917), as well as "Evening Landscape" (1917) and "Landscape with a flower bed" (1917), were previously attributed by the author of the article as related to the Vyborg period. Probably, there are other canvases which were painted by Kustodiev in Konkkala but neither specialists nor ordinary spectators do not know about them yet. Besides, some other famous paintings of the artist of 1917, in our opinion, need additional researches on their connection with Vyborg (Konkkala). It is important that after the revolution, the artist Kustodiev was offered to go abroad, but he has refused to leave his homeland. In the 1920s, Kustodiev was called "the last singer of the merchant-kulak environment", and this label has brought him troubles. The artist was forgotten. But despite the "persecution", only three Russian painters were honored to place their lifetime portraits into the famous Italian Uffizzi Gallery: Orest Kiprensky, Ivan Aivazovsky and Boris Kustodiev. In 1910, the Minister of Public Education of Italy, Luigi Credaro, addressed to Boris Kustodiev: "We want to replenish our gallery with the works of the living now great artist".

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