Piskarev Pavel Alekseevich

He stood at the origins of modern Moldavian painting. He worked in different genres and types of fine art. He was engaged in monumental and easel painting, and painted portraits. He created paintings in the style of Russian Peredvizhniki, turning to mythological motifs. He did a lot of church painting. Author of paintings of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Bolgrad (1912), the Holy Intercession Cathedral in Izmail (1913 and 1936), the Holy Ascension Cathedral in Reni (1914), churches in Targovishte in Romania (1931), in the villages of Singer and Zagoryan, Belgorod-Dnestrovsky (1939), Cathedral cathedral and Ascension Church in Chisinau (1930s). In 1940, he received an order to paint the Demetrius Church in Izmail, but did not have time to complete this work due to the advent of Soviet power.   P. Piskarev's canvases are now kept in the collection of works by artists of Bessarabia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the National Art Museum of Moldova. Born into a peasant family in the village of Davydovo, Mosalsky district, Kaluga province. In 1880 the family moved to Odessa. After studying at the Odessa Drawing School, from 1899 he studied at the Odessa “Art School of the Society of Fine Arts” - under the guidance of K. Kostandi and A. Popov. He was invited to Chisinau, where he opened an art workshop that carried out all kinds of decorative work: paintings, copies of paintings by famous artists, portraits from cards and nature, icons, icon cases, iconostases, chasing images, painting churches and rooms, plans and estimates of iconostases, projects and sketches, painting walls, ceilings, shop windows, decorations, furniture, grilles, crosses, monuments. Even then he gave lessons in drawing, painting, sculpture and burning. He was the founding director and teacher of the first private school of artistic crafts and applied arts in Chisinau, which he created in 1907 on the basis of his own workshop. The purpose of this school was "to produce skilled master craftsmen, to spread artistic education among them and to promote the development of a taste for the fine arts in all classes of society." Since 1911 he taught drawing at the Chisinau Theological Seminary. In the early 1920s he moved to Romania. From 1926 to 1930 he worked at the National Theater of Bucharest. Member of the Bessarabian Association of Art Lovers (Chisinau) and the Kherson Society of Fine Arts Lovers. Participant of exhibitions of the Society of Lovers of Fine Arts of Bessarabia (1906, 1910, 1918) and the Society of Fine Arts of Bessarabia (1939). He held personal exhibitions in Bucharest (1928 - church painting, 1929), Chisinau (1936, jointly with his daughter Anna Piskareva). He was buried at the Armenian cemetery in Chisinau.