People's Artist of the RSFS
Honored Artist of the RSFSR,
Professor, Honorary Citizen of the cities of Kostroma, Chuguev, Lozovaya

Alexei P. Belykh, a Kostroma painter, an Honored Painter of Russia, was born on June 3, 1923 in the village of Krutets, Orel Region.

Since his early childhood, he dreamed of becoming a painter, but his dream came true only after the Great Patriotic War. He came to Moscow to enter the Military Academy but after visiting the Tretyakov Gallery, the future painter gave up the idea of making a military career and entered the Surikov Institute (1952). His favorite painter was Vrubel, but he was also captivated by Serov, Levitan and Repin.

As a student, Belykh visited the Baltic Republics, Siberia, and Lake Baikal. The grandeur and scale of the Bratskaya Hydro-Electric Plant was the inspiration for his diploma work, First Builders of Bratskaya Electric Power Station.

Belykh's teachers at the Institute were I.I. Orlov, P.D. Pokarzhevsky, V.G. Tsyplakov.

Upon graduating from the Institute in 1958, Belykh went to the city of Kostroma where he lived and worked combining his creative work while teaching at the Kostroma Art College (1958-64) and Pedagogical Institute (1964). He created a number of thematic canvases about Kostroma forest workers: "Youth brigade", "Lumberjack", "On a rafting road. Change is underway". A number of portrait works belong to the same period. At the same time, Belykh participated in regional, zonal, republican, all-Union exhibitions with thematic canvases, portraits and landscapes.

In 1965 Belykh was awarded the title of the "Honored Painter of Russia" for his contributions to the art world.

The range of creative interests of Belykh is very wide; he works at subject paintings with no less desire than at portraits and landscapes. The main themes of his numerous subject paintings are man, labor, nature and their correlation and unity.

In the 1960s Belykh made a lot of pictures, the main characters of which are people whose whole life is closely connected with the forest. He depicted woodcutters, rafters, whose hard labor is void of any external romanticism ("On Small Rivers", "A Woodcutter", 1963).

In a series devoted to the subject, there are such pictures as "Woodcutters-a Youth Brigade", "Indian Summer," and "Veteran". In all these pictures a lyrical note is vivid, be it a portrait of a young lad, or the image of a woman living on the Volga River ("Volzhanka"), or the image of the War and Labor Veteran.

Depicting the people of labor Belykh always resorts to landscape as a means of describing the models, their individual features. Lyricism is one of the cornerstones of Belykh's outlook. One can clearly see his warmth towards people.

The Man of Labor is a very important but not a single subject in his canvases. He is interested in Man's life in all its manifestations. A bright joy of the happiness of maternity fills up his pictures such as "In April", in which one can notice a deep, exciting poetry. The same joy and feeling of happy childhood colors is seen in the portrait of Belykh's daughter "Lyubasha" who is depicted among dandelions.

Belykh also paints a lot of portraits. He depicts numerous portraits of woodcutters, collective-farm workers, Soviet Army soldiers. His portraits are remarkable for their psychological depth and the painter's ability to underline the main characteristic features of models. His portraits of children are full of tenderness, truth of children's world and great expressiveness.

Landscapes occupy a special place in the master's work. Belykh painted many landscapes. In bright harmony of the surrounding world the painter saw the charm of life itself and human existence.
The artist's rainbow palette glorifies the banks of the Volga, the nature of the Central Russian steppe, and architectural monuments of Kostroma.

From 1960 to 1985, Belykh worked as a teacher of special disciplines in the graphic arts department of the Kostroma Pedagogical Institute named after N.A.Nekrasov, in 1968 he was awarded the academic title of professor.

In the Kostroma Higher Military Command School of Chemical Defense, thematic exhibitions of A. Belykh's works were organized: "Around Italy", "The Native Land". The author presented the school with a portrait of cadet A. Kudrin, which laid the foundation for the creation of a permanent art gallery at the school.

Belykh participated in numerous art exhibits at home and abroad. He had several solo exhibits. His art works can now be found in the collections of several Soviet museums and the Fleischer Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona as well as in private collections in Japan, France, and the United States.

The works of A.P. Belykh are kept in the Kostroma Museum of Fine Arts, the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War, in other museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Chuguev, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Tula, Kaliningrad, galleries in the USA, Germany, Finland, Italy.

People's Artist of the RSFSR, Honored Artist of the RSFSR, Professor. Honorary Citizen of the cities of Kostroma, Chuguev and Lozovaya. He was awarded the Orders of the Patriotic War of I and II degrees, the Red Star, the Badge of Honor, medals for the liberation of Warsaw, for the capture of Konigsberg, for the capture of Berlin and others.

He died in Kostroma on February 11, 2017,

Awards 

• Honored Artist of the RSFSR
• Honored Artist of the RSFSR
• People's Artist of the RSFSR
• Order of the Patriotic War I degree
• Order of the Patriotic War II degree
• Order of the Red Star
• Order of the Badge of Honor
• Order of Friendship
• Honorary Citizen of the city of Lozovaya (1990
• Honorary Citizen of the city of Kostroma (2001)
• Honorary Citizen of the city of Chuguev
Literature Alexey Belykh. A celebration of life and love. M.B. 2008.
Buzin A.I. Alexey Belykh People's Artist of Russia. Kostroma: Kostroma Regional Duma, 2000.