Victor Popkov

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Viktor Yefimovich Popkov (Russian: Виктор Ефимович Попков; 9 March 1932 – 12 November 1974) was a Soviet Russian painter and graphic artist, and one of the leading figures of the "severe style", the manner that emerged in Soviet art during the Khrushchev Thaw in reaction against the idealised painting of the Stalin years. His large canvas The Builders of Bratsk (1960–1961), painted after journeys to the construction sites of Siberia, is among the emblematic works of the movement. From the mid-1960s Popkov turned away from industrial subjects towards the villages of the Russian North and towards openly personal painting on war, memory, loneliness and death, in cycles such as the Mezen Widows (1966–1968) and in the self-portrait Father's Overcoat (1970–1972). He was killed in Moscow at the age of 42, shot by a security guard accompanying a cash-in-transit vehicle, and was posthumously awarded the USSR State Prize in 1975. Although he remains little known outside Russia, he was given solo exhibitions in Venice and London in 2014 and a retrospective of more than 200 works at the Tretyakov Gallery in 2024–2025.