The winner of the award of G.S.Mosin - the annual prestigious regional award in the field of the fine arts which is awarded for the powerful contribution to development of Urals and Russian art.
Artist Anatoly Kalashnikov was born in 1947 in Sverdlovsk. Soon he together with a family moved to Chelyabinsk – a city of the childhood and a youth of the artist.
In the late sixties Kalashnikov came back in a native city. The beginning artist got to Sverdlovsk during that significant time when the city almost for two decades became one of the centres defining style of the fine arts of that time.
In 1970 Kalashnikov graduated from Sverdlovsk art college. Then he teached in Alma Mater painting and a composition, engaged in decorating of public spaces.
Design work developed surprising abilities at artists: to think on a substantial scale, to see an image direct in a material, to work with the big planes, to build prospectin a special way. These qualities had originally refracted in the easel works of the artist known for their monumentalism.
In 1980s the present information boom has fallen upon Russia. In one of telecasts had effectively submitted a plot about cowboys — overlanders. They gave the artist in idea to show all history of the USA through ordinary event — a cattle stage in the State of Montana. The work on a picture proceeded for 10 years – from 1989 to 1990.The artist had imagined a canvas in height to ten and extent to hundred meters (at the moment extent of "Montana" is 18 meters). Some years were left to study the graphic and historical materials. Numerous sketches had been made, some pictures reproducing the key moments stories of the USA had been painted. Great history of the USA — from opening by Columbus (as though its prologue) to a modern superstate - all has taken places in a picture. The picture includes history of joining of various states, North and South war, portraits of presidents, sportsmen, stars of Hollywood, and the main thing, display of results of work of the people occupying this country.
In parallel with «opening of America» the artist opened other surprising world — the world of ancient Mongolia. The artist force of imagination created the country — the Inner Mongolia embodied in a poetical picturesque cycle "Temudzhin's Country".
Anatoly Kalashnikov fruitfully co-operated with other known artist Misha Brusilovsky. The result of their two-year joint creativity is a cycle "The Carnival" consisting of five grandiose pictures, creating which artists made a start from the traditions of Venetian painting of XVI century.
Being the expert on material culture of the past, Anatoly Kalashnikov with the big trembling concerns all details of the picture – suits, the architecture, the weapon.
Kalashnikov well know art currents and searches of painting of the past centuries, therefore it is no wonder that we can find reminiscences with Poussin, Bryullov, Russo, Gauguin, Picasso's creativity on his pictures. Kalashnikov speaks with these authors through his canvas.
Kalashnikov's pictures are in museums and galleries of Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, Barnaul, in private collections in Russia, Czechia, Germany, Canada, the USA.
