Biography

Robert Romanovich (Robertovich) Bach (February 9, 1859 — September 17, 1933) — Russian sculptor, the academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts since 1891. Worked in the field of an indoor sculpture. Since 1896 gave sculpturing classes at the architectural department of the Highest Art School of The Imperial Academy of Arts.

Robert Romanovich Bach was born in St. Petersburg in the family of a painter and sculptor Roman Ivanovich Bach (Germ. Robert-Heinrich Bach). Studied in the reputed German school Petrischule from 1872 to 1876; studied in the German St. Anna's College from 1876 to 1879.

He was the unenrolled student of the Sculpture Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1878-1885. He studied under the tutelage of different masters such as A. R. von Bock, N. A. laveretskiy and I. Podozerov. Bach received praise for the sculpture of a group of cubs-bears in 1879. Не received a small incentive medal for molding of the wax bass-relief of The Elf (the State Russian Museum) in 1882, and for molding from life, he received the large encouragement medal and the title of the Class artist of the third degree in 1885.

Не attended in- home classes under Professor P. P. Chistyakov in 1884. In 1886 for a number of works, a bass-relief of The Idyll, a portrait of P. P. Chistyakov was among them, the sculptor was awarded with the title of class artist of the second degree. In 1891, for a statue “The Genius of Art" that was installed on the roof of the left part of the Imperial Society for the Arts Encouragement the building in St. Petersburg, he was ranked with the title of an academician.

Since 1906, Bach was a full member of the Academy of Arts. Worked in the field of the indoor sculpture; created a portraits gallery of painters, writers and composers - F. M. Dostoevsky (1886), I. A. Krylov (1886), I. S. Turgenev (1886) (all in the Pushkin’s house), R. I. Bach (1889), V. E. Savinsky (1901), V. E. Makovsky (1913), etc.

The author provided many portrait busts, animalistic works (The Woodpecker, The Bison, The Greyhound and Wood Grouses) and decorative objects for replication at the Kasli’s factory.

The artist worked in the field of the monumental sculpture as well. He created the monuments to Pushkin in Tsarskoye Selo (1900), to M. Glinka at the Theatre Square in St.-Petersburg (1906), and to Peter the Great in Tula (1910).

In the Soviet times, the artist continued his career as a teacher. He taught drawing and modeling in the secondary school and in the Estonian technical college in St. Petersburg, was the Professor in the monumental sculpture Department at the Leningrad Higher Art-Technical Institute (1926-1929).

Interesting facts:

• It is believed that the monument "Pushkin-the Lyceum student", created in 1900 by Robert Bach and installed in Tsarskoye Selo, brings good luck and inspiration to young poets.