Zvorykin Boris Vasilievich

Russian artist, graphic and ornamentalist. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1892–1893. One of the founders of the “Society for the Revival of Artistic Rus'” in 1915. Even in his youth, like Bilibin, he became interested in the “Russian theme.” Love for Russian antiquity - history, legends and folklore, decorative and applied arts, icon painting and wooden architecture, ancient calligraphy, ornamentation and book miniatures became the core on which Zvorykin’s creative destiny was subsequently built. Since 1898, Boris Zvorykin illustrated and designed books for the best Russian publishing houses - I. N. Knebel, A. I. Mamontov, I. D. Sytin in Moscow, A. A. Levinson and A. F. Marx - in St. Petersburg. Boris Zvorykin was one of the most notable authors of Christmas and Easter greeting cards. He also gained fame as an artist of open letters, painting in watercolor a series of postcards on the themes “Time of Troubles”, “Napoleon’s Invasion of 1812”, “Russian Children”, “Russian Epics”, “Hunting”, and since 1914 - on patriotic themes that inspired the citizens of the warring power. At the end of 1917, Boris Zvorykin designed the Message of the Local Council on the restoration of the patriarchate - a unique twenty-meter manuscript, handwritten in the style of letters of the 17th century and decorated with figures of saints. The artist also made a sketch of the patriarchal seal and designed the Personal Message of Patriarch Tikhon to the heads of foreign Christian churches. After the October Revolution, Zvorykin, following Bilibin, left his homeland. The next two decades, spent as an exile in Paris, were filled with tireless creativity.