Aristarkh Aristarkhovich Kobtsev (April 6, 1884-February 28, 1961) biographies are included in encyclopedic editions, such as, for example, the Vocabulary of the USSR Academy of Arts edited by O. Volderburg, Encyclopedia of Contemporary Ukraine, biographical researches of Barkovska O.M., Lushchyk S.Z., Golubovsky E.M., and Gridin V.

The name of the artist is included in the Register of Professional Artists of the Russian Empire and the USSR. However, published biographies have a number of omissions inherent in the Soviet period of history. Aristarkh Aristarkhovich Kobtsev was born in the Aristarkh Fedotovich Kobtsev's family, technical specialist of the main railway workshop of the Odessa Railway.

The workshop was a very large enterprise with a staff of 3,000 people. The family had their own house on 12 Smirnovskaya Street (Shota Rustaveli St., Near Mills, Odessa) on a plot of 10 acres. Mother, Maria Georgievna Melnikova, was the daughter of an Odessa merchant, died of a disease in 1887. Aristarkh Kobtsev was the youngest child. He had brothers Vladimir and Emmanuel, and sister Zinaida.

Aristarkh Kobtsev studied at Technical School of the Odessa Railway (today Railway College) in 1898-1901 years. After the school, Kobtsev received a higher artistic education in the years 1901-1905 at Ostromensky Private Art School. The school worked in Odessa in 1900-1908 years. It's alumnus were graduated as teachers with personal nobility and the right to be appealed with title “The Honorable”.

The head of the school was Adolf Ostromensky. He was graduated from the Odessa Art School as the best alumni. Also, he was graduated from St. Petersburg Imperial Academy with the honor medal and the qualification of a class artist. Reviews of a number of artists of that time approve that the school was popular and gave good professional training. Graduates of the school often continued their education outside the borders of the Russian Empire. Majority of school alumni emigrated. Ostromensky emigrated from Russia too. So in the known lists of South Russian artists almost all graduated of this school are absent.

Aristarkh Kobtsev, aged 21 y.o., contrary to the will of his father, married the 18 y.o. daughter of a retired Kazakh, Elena Artemyevna Boyko, on July 20, 1905. Kobtsev left the father's house and rented an apartment not far away — on the street Molchanovskaya, 13 (today Skvortsova, Near Mills). In this apartment he would have been living the life. This move, as it turned out later, was the first fateful decision. There is a certificate from the party committee of the January plant that approved the real estate absence.

Aristarkh's brother, Vladimir, had grown to an imperial official before the revolution and was shot in the 1920s. Brother Emmanuel died of illness in adolescence. Zinaida married the son of the Odessa millionaire merchant Fedor Ivanovich Marcin. Ivan Marcin in 1897 started a second Odessa steam mill, for which he was awarded a medal. Marcin's family had houses in the Far Mills. Fedor also bought the estate and the forest near Saratov. When Kobtsev visited Saratov in 1906, he wrote graphic works “Aunt’s Forest”, “Holobovsky Park” in Saratov. Kobtsev's father died in 1933 at the age of 82 in Odessa.

Two sons were born in the family of Aristarkh — Valentine (in 1907) and Nikolai (in 1909). The younger, Nikolai, had artistic talent, but he died from an illness in 1924. Valentine lived a long life. In 1916, he enrolled in the third Odessa gymnasium and studied there until its closure by the Soviet authorities in mid-1919. Sergey Korolev studied in the same class with him. After the gymnasium, Valentin finished his studies at the Soviet school, graduated, according to tradition, Railway Technical School. During the hard times the railway fed students and gave coal them for heating. Valentin graduated with a technician degree and, according to an accelerated program, also graduated with an engineering degree at the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers. Valentin was working on the railway and in the 30s he received offer to manage Odessa railway. But Valentin refused the proposition, because several of railway managers were executed. Then there was the World War II, in which he took part from July 1941. Valentin visited Berlin and Japan, graduated with the rank of military railway troops major and was honored by orders and medals. After the war he supervised the recovery of industry in Moldova and was honored with the Order of Lenin. Kobtsev V. A. died in 1999 in Odessa.

Along with his studies, Aristarkh Kobtsev, in order to provide his family and pay for his art school, began working as a draftsman in 1902. The second fateful decision of Kobtsev was in 1910 to get a teacher job of drawing and graphic art at the Railway School with the fulfillment of orders for drawing and design work of the workshop. The imperial educational committee promoted Aristarkh to the next title honored teacher of graphic art at the very beginning of 1917.

After the Socialist revolution of October 1917, his authority and participation in the training of railway workers played an important role. The workshop workers appreciated Kobtsev as a teacher from the folk masses, and a remarkable artist

At the same time, Kobtsev from 1907 to 1918 collaborated with Odessa illustrated magazines and newspapers. He drew caricatures in such Odessa newspapers as “Odessa News” (1907), “Odessa Courier” (1909), “Odessa Thought” (1909), illustrated appendices to the “Odessa Word” (1910), “Odessa News” (1912), such magazines as “Wave” (1910), “Crocodile” (1911-1912), “Bomb” (1917), “Life and Art” (Kiev, 1914), “Figaro” (1918). He graphically designed the cover of the magazine for Jewish children “Spikes” (1913) and the leading St. Petersburg art magazine “Apollo” for 1912, the cover of the first book of the poet Mark Taly “Evening Bowl” (1910).

In the works of E. M. Golubovsky, it was suggested that in 1943 Kobtsev illustrated the cover of a book of poems by Gumilyov published in Odessa, which was banned by Soviet power. The book had an anti-Soviet foreword. Autograph under such work the artist, of course, did not put.

Kobtsev actively participated in the life of the artistic world of Odessa. In 1909 at the age of 25, he was elected into the Association of South Russian Artists (ASRA). ASRA was founded in Odessa in 1890 and was one of the largest art associations in the empire outside Moscow and St. Petersburg. The company cooperated with the Moscow associations “Peredvizhniki” and “World of Art”. Up until 1919, every autumn opened another exhibition of artists, where A. Kobtsev took part. The painters tried to focus on the artistic life of the largest centers of culture — Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, Munich. It was facilitated by the availability of subscriptions to German, French and English magazines, art criticism, books on history of arts. There were a lot of journals in the periods 1909-1914 and 1918-1922, for example, in the Kobtsev’s library.

Unfortunately, the situation in Odessa was not too conducive to the prosperity of art. There were a narrow circle of collectors and patrons of art, potential buyers of paintings, the atmosphere of a large commercial city, where business was always preferred to culture. “A man with a spark of God should flee from here — there is no other way out. Until Odessa citizens will learn to cherish their gifted persons, many of them will go to the grave, tired of fighting and suffering. Your place are not here, but in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, Milan, and Florence, where talents are understood and appreciated” wrote the Odessa journalist. Under these conditions, ASRA acquired special importance for artists. It not only helped artists to produce and exhibit works, but, more importantly, contributed to their sales. After all, the majority of artists lived mainly due to professional work and teaching (as, say, K.Kostandi or A.Kobtsev). Almost all Odessa participants in periodic exhibitions were students of the Odessa Art School, which in different years gave a specialized primary, secondary, or higher education. The school at the level of secondary education (since 1900) gave the right to enter the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg without examinations. This school attracted students from Jewish families in Odessa and Ukraine, who in different years were up to half of the student contingent.

The undoubted advantage of TURH (or FSRA, ASRA) was the lack of caste isolation, openness to all who wish to take part in exhibitions. Some conservatism in the creative attitude of the masters of the FSRA began to change after the shows in 1909-1910 and 1911 of two famous Salons, organized by the sculptor and painter with Munich education V. Izdebsky. The first salon was shown in Odessa, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Riga. The second, less ambitious, was in Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson. These were exhibitions of contemporary art, at which Odessa's citizens could get acquainted with the latest trends in foreign and domestic art. Many artists from two empire capitals, from Munich and Paris participated Saloons. Since 1909, at first irregularly (1909, 1913, 1914, 1916), alternative exhibitions of young artists have been organized by the FSRA, and since 1917 the Association of Independent Artists (AIA) had officially declared itself, bringing together youth art groups focused on contemporary art and European trends. Without leaving FSRA, in 1917, Kobtsev joined the AIA — member ticket number 16.

In general, the FSRA proved to be tolerant to new aesthetic trends and a number of members of the FSRA took part in the autumn painting exhibition of 1916. In the summer of 1918, the Odessa Association of Fine Arts organized a joint exhibition of FSRA and AIA.

After the establishment of Soviet power in 1920 all the old artists associations were closed and many artists emigrated. Kobtsev joined to the Professional Union of Artists organized in 1920 (member ticket number 173). Kostandi died in 1921 and in honor of him the Kostandi Art Association was founded in 1922. Kobtsev joined to it when the association began to organize exhibitions in 1925 (member ticket number 34). The association was being sharply criticized by Soviet authorities and in 1929 has been dissolved. In the late thirties, the Soviet government greatly increased control of artists creativity. In 1938, the Ukrainian SSR Artists Union (UAU) Congress was held. Also in 1938 Kobtsev was accepted as a member of this union. Because Kobtsev was a respected artist, Odessa artists elected Kobtsev a chairman of Odessa branch painting section. After the de-occupation of Ukraine Kobtsev was elected again to the UAU. It happened on June 26, 1944. And after the unification of all Republican unions into a single Union of Artists of the USSR, in 1960 he received a ticket of a member of this Union.

Membership required systematic participation in exhibitions of these associations. Kobtsev participated in almost all their exhibitions held in Odessa.

In the newspaper “Chervoniy Sichnevets”, November 6, 1940, in the article “Notable People of the Plant”, noted that Kobtsev, in addition to Odessa, took part in exhibitions of paintings in Moscow. In the certificate, issued by the Odessa branch of the Union of Artists of the Ukrainian SSR on 04/12/1960, it is noted that Kobtsev took part in the All-Union and Republican art exhibitions. Also, some of Georgia museums (before the revolution) purchased paintings and those participated in local exhibitions.

From 1944 to 1953 Kobtsev worked at the Odessa art-production workshops. Further Kobtsev retired. Aristarkh Aristarkhovich Kobtsev died in his apartment at Molchanovskaya 13, with his family, February 28, 1961, and was buried in the 49th section of the Odessa Second Christian Cemetery with relatives. Rest in peace ...

The reputation of a teacher from the workers, the support of the workers of the restored plant, the son — an army officer who went through the war, allowed Kobtsev to avoid reprisals after the return of Soviet power, although a number of Odessa artists were repressed. But Kobtsev was no longer allowed to teach.

The artistic heritage of Kobtsev includes more than 1000 works of various genres. Unwillingness to cooperate with the authorities did not nominate Kobtsev to the artists, whose name is widely known in the USSR, but allowed him to live a relatively quiet life (in a remote province by the sea, as Nobel Prize poet I. Brodsky wrote). Before the revolution, the leading Odessa artists perceived Kobtsev as a young talented man. However, his place of work in the Railway workshop school did not allow him to contact with leading painters of Empire capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg. After the revolution the Soviet authorities liked either servants or dead in time artists. Such people the Soviet authorities easily titled great artists. Kobtsev painting were mostly out of public life after his death because his heritage was not associated with the Soviet ideology and socialist realism. Interest to Kobtsev is reviving in independent Ukraine

Kobtsev’s heritage can be divided into five stages.

The first stage, pre-revolutionary, is represented by wonderful graphic works made with ink. These are landscapes, portraits, Greek mythology and fantasy works. A separate type of creativity is faces of contemporaries. Some works were printed by newspapers and magazines.

The second stage, pre-revolutionary, is associated with the appearance of many color paintings, painted in both watercolor and oil, mostly small format. Oil paintings are distinguished by good colors and a wide variety of styles of performance. Paintings of different genres were painted: portraits, fantasy works, mythology, several landscapes.

Kobtsev did not want to paint leaders portraits and ideological socialist art when the Soviet power was established. Therefore, in the third stage, 1924 to 1941, Kobtsev was mainly a landscape painter. In that period Kobtsev drew also a lot of portraits in pencil. Mostly there were portraits of relatives.

At the fourth stage, the occupation of Odessa, Kobtsev was icon painter. He wrote a lot of original icons. Kobtsev also continued to paint landscapes, portraits of fellow citizens.

Finally, in the fifth, post-war stage, series of canvases were written about the war, partisans, and destruction. These canvases were purchased by Soviet museums. There were, for example, Odessa historical museum (“Fire at the Plant named after January Uprising”, “Battle of Luzanovka during the heroic defense of Odessa”, “Meeting of the headquarters of the partisan detachment of Vladimir A. Molodtsov-Badayev in the catacombs of 1941-1942”, “An uprising of Odessa railway workshops workers in 1903”), Odessa Art Museum (“The North Landscape”), Luhansk Art Museum (“Ours came”) acquired by museums of Georgia, Baltic States and Russia. Many of pictures of pre-revolution stages were taken out Odessa in the period of large-scale emigration.