Letyanin, Viktor

1921 - 2009

Viktor Letyanin was born in the town of Kalinino, Gorki region, Russia on November 30, 1921. Letyanin’s father, crippled from a wound received in World War I, was dispossessed and exiled for his attemps to organize the workers of the local collective farm. Because of his father’s actions, the young Viktor was branded a "Kulak’s son" and banned from attending school. Due to his own persistence, he gained admission into the Gorki Art School, where he studied for two years until the outbreak of World War II.

The young Letyanin was drafted into the Red Army and assigned to the Northern Front. He achieved the rank of lieutenant and was wounded three times prior to his discharge in 1945. He was awarded four military orders and three medals for his service. Letyanin returned to the Gorki Art School in 1947 and graduated in 1949. Because his final academic painting, "Crossing the River Dnieper", won critical acclaim, he was recommended for further studies.

Letyanin lost a competition for acceptance into the prestigious Repin Institute in St. Petersburg, and entered the Tartu Art Instutute in Tartu, Estonia. After studying there for one year, he transferred into the Repin, where he entered the workshop of R.R. Frentz. He graduated in 1955 and returned to Gorki to pursue his career. He established himself as a highly-respected painter of every day life in the Soviet Union.

Letyanin began exhibiting in 1955 in Tambov. Since then, he has participated in major exhibitions in Gorki, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Volgograd. His works may be found in numerous Russian museums and in major private collections in Russia, Western Europe and the United States.

He is listed on page 185 of Matthew Bown's, A Dictionary of Twentieth Century Russian and Soviet Painters.