Biography

Soviet academic, sculptor-monumentalist, tutor, professor. Vice-President of the Academy of Arts and the People's Artist of the USSR. Veteran of the Great Patriotic War, the author of the monument “The Motherland Calls!”, of the monument to “The Soldier-Liberator” in the Treptower Park in Berlin, the monument “Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares” at the United nations garden in New York. His works, rightfully, became the symbols of heroism and courage of the Soviet Union-winner.

Vuchetich was born in Ukrainian Ekaterinoslav. Early showed creative talent successfully studied at the art school in Rostov-on-Don, where he started with stone carving. In the early 30s, Evgeny became a student of the Institute of Proletarian Fine Arts at the All-Russian Academy of Arts named after Repin, in Leningrad. While studying, he actively participated in various exhibitions. In 1937, he was awarded with Gold Medal at the International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris. Since the mid-30s, he worked as a sculptor on large-scale architectural projects - Hotel Moscow, and the Lenin State Library of the USSR.

From the first days of the war, in 1941, Vuchetich volunteered for frontline duty as a foot soldier- machine gunner. In 1943, Vuchetich being in the rank of captain was shell-shocked and after treatment, he was enlisted in the M. Grekov Studio of Military Artists in Moscow. In the wartime works, Vuchetich created the images that became the symbols of the national heroism, and the sculptor became one of the major figures of the Soviet government-backed monumental sculptural art.

In 1948, after the War, Vuchetich was appointed the lead sculptor of the Exhibition of Economic Achievements. In collaboration with other architects, he established the style known as the Stalin-era architecture. Art critics of the world called Vuchetich - Michelangelo of the Soviet era.

He sculpted more than forty portraits of the Russian and Soviet military officials, politicians, heroes of labour and cultural professionals. The theme of the feat of the people during the years of the World War II always remained exclusive for the master. The sculptor passed away in Moscow in 1974. The reduced copy of the monument “The mourning Mother” created by Vuchetich for the memorial ensemble on the Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd was installed on his grave.