Adolph Gugel (1915–1999) is a many-sided artist and Honored Artist of the BSSR who revealed himself in different genres: portrait, still-life, landscape painting and narrative painting. He was professionally educated in the Vitsebsk College of Arts (1936–1940) before the Great Patriotic War, but he did not have time to reveal his creative potential. He joined the Red Army as a volunteer but soon he was discharged for health reasons and evacuated in Kemerovo town where he stayed to the end of the war. After returning to Minsk in 1945 the artist’s name sounded more often on all-levels exhibitions.
Gugel’s paintings fell on post-war time and set a tone to the epoch. His artworks show him as a master of composition with a special perception of time. Among the heroes of his pictures both ordinary Soviet people and famous politicians and culture figures can be found. But lyrical children’s images hold a special place in his creative work. Belarusian nature was a source of inspiration for Gugel’s artworks, where he was similar to explorer, who studies, reveals and experiments with his creative possibilities, painting “heartfelt landscapes”.
Adolph Gugel began his creative career as a painter adherent to the realistic painting of Peredvizhniki art movement, a gradual shift to the recognizable author’s style could be traced, which was characterized by plastic and figurative language, tending to conventionality and decorativeness.
The exhibition is represented by the artworks from the funds of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, the Museum of Belarusian Polesye, the Belarusian Union of Artists and by documents and photos from the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War and the artist’s family archive.
The exhibition “Adolph Gugel. A novel written in colours” will be displayed from April 25 till June 15, 2025.
