Vera Mukhina

A portrait by Mikhail Nesterov

Memorial plaque in Riga, Turgeneva 23/25

Worker and Kolkhoz Woman

Vera Ignatyevna Mukhina (Russian: Вера Игнатьевна Мухина; Latvian: Vera Muhina; July 1, 1889 [O.S. June 19] in Riga — 6 October 1953 in Moscow) was a prominent Soviet sculptor.

She was born in Riga into a wealthy merchant family, she lived at Turgeneva st. 23/25. In the memory of this, a memorial plaque was placed at this house. Later moved to Moscow, where she studied at different private art schools, including that of Konstantin Yuon and Ilya Mashkov. In 1912 she travelled to Paris, where she attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, taking lessons from Emile-Antoine Bourdelle. She later went to Italy to explore the art and sculptures of the Renaissance period. In 1918 she married Alexei Zamkov, a military surgeon.

Her most celebrated work is the giant monument Worker and Kolkhoz Woman which was the centerpiece of the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris. The 24-meter-tall, 75-ton sculpture was made of sheets of stainless steel connected together with an innovative method of spot welding. One hand of each figure holds respectively a hammer and a sickle, the two implements joining to form the hammer and sickle symbol of the Soviet Union. In 1947 the sculpture, now installed at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre (then "All-Soviet..."), became the symbol of the Russian Mosfilm studio.

Because she had influence as a great Soviet artist at the time and she had once been a student of the sculptor Kārlis Zāle, Vera persuaded Soviet officials in the late 1940s that the Freedom Monument in Riga was of great artistic importance. Due to her efforts the monument was not demolished to make way for an equestrian statue of Peter I the Great.

In the 1940s Mukhina's artistic style no longer seemed to fit into the aesthetic standards of Stalin's era^{[citation needed]}. Her projects were either never erected or were seriously distorted, as was the case with the monuments to Soviet leaders Yakov Sverdlov and Vladimir Lenin, composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky in Moscow and writer Maxim Gorky: the latter was designed for the capital but transferred to Nizhny Novgorod.

Mukhina's legacy seems to be of little importance to the powers-that-be in today's Moscow. Mukhina's house and studio at 3a Prechistensky Lane is slated for demolition.