16 Facts About Ivan Efimov

Ivan Efimov created pieces for the Central Museum of Ethnology, the North River Terminal, several metro and railway stations and the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Ivan Semyonovich Efimov was born on 11 February 1878 in Moscow.

Ivan Efimov's father, Semyon Grigorievich Efimov, was a government official and the illegitimate son of a Ukrainian peasant woman.

Ivan Efimov's mother descended from the Demidov family of whom the forebear, Nikita Demidov, a blacksmith from Tula, pioneered the production of iron ore in the Ural Mountains.

Ivan Efimov grew up in an aristocratic milieu in the Tambov province on an estate known as "Otradnoe", to which later he would take his young bride.

Ivan Efimov felt imprisoned and cut off from nature, which led to his creating handcrafted toy animals.

In 1896, Efimov completed his studies at the Polivanov Gymnasium, which had been founded by Lev I Polivanov, and then took private art lessons with Nikolai A Martynov for two years.

Between 1909 and 1911, Ivan Efimov worked in the studio of Antoine Bourdelle and beginning in 1910 studied sculpture with Filippo Colarossi and mastered the art of etching under the direction of Elizaveta Kruglikova.

Ivan Efimov joined the circle of Russian artists working in Montparnasse and took inspiration from nature at the Paris Menagerie.

Ivan Efimov was not interested in their portraiture, but rather in capturing the typical characteristics of his subject.

Ivan Efimov rejected traditional media like marble and stone, preferring to work with cement, clay, glass, metal or wood, which placed his works in the folk art tradition.

Ivan Efimov tried to capture the natural movement as well as characteristics.

Thereafter, Ivan Efimov worked from 1932 to 1933 to create an installation, "History of Russia in Mannequins" for the same museum.

Ivan Efimov designed reliefs for two of the Moscow metro stations, Paveletskaya and Avtozavodskaya ; two of the Moscow railway stations, Yaroslavl and Leningrad ; and for the winter garden at the Grand Kremlin Palace.

In 1955 he was designated as an Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and three years later, in 1958, Ivan Efimov was honored as the People's Artist of the RSFSR.

Ivan Efimov has works in the permanent collections of the Pushkin Museum, the State Museum of Ceramics at the "XVIII Century Manor of Kuskovo", the State Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Italian Museum in Trieste.