Artist. A leading Russian avant-garde painter before and after the 1917 Revolution. His style has been characterized as “primitivist” in its rough handling of paint and emotional objectivity, especially in his portraits. He refused to compromise his art under Stalinism and died in the political purges of the late 1930s. Alexander Davidovich Drevin was born in Cesis, Latvia. Following brief imprisonment for revolutionary activities (1906) he studied at the Fine Arts School in Riga. He was initially influenced by Impressionism. In 1914 he moved to Moscow, where he participated in several creative groups and acquainted himself with new trends in French painting, including Fauvism. After the Revolution he married painter Nadezhda Udaltsova, taught at the Higher Art and Technical Studios (1920 to 1930), and made several field trips to the Urals, Kazakhstan and Armenia. He had one-man exhibitions in Leningrad (1928) and Yerevan (1934). In 1930 Drevin lost his teaching post, and with the subsequent rise of “socialist realism” – which demanded that all Soviet art be used for propaganda purposes – he was criticized for remaining resolutely apolitical and individualist. He continued to paint in his own way after his canvases were no longer allowed to be shown in public. On January 17, 1938, Drevin was arrested as part of a round-up of prominent Latvians in Moscow, all of whom were charged with belonging to a non-existent “nationalist group allied with fascists”. Five weeks later he was shot and buried at the notorious Butovo killing field. Udaltsova secretly hid her husband’s artwork, and when the NKVD came to confiscate it she gave them her own paintings instead. Drevin was “posthumously rehabilitated” in 1956, though a commemorative exhibition was not held for him until 1971 (a decade after Udaltsova’s death). Today his canvases can be seen at Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery and in museums throughout the world. (bio by: Bobb Edwards)  Family links:  Spouse:  Nadezhda Andreyevna Udaltsova (1886 – 1961)*  Children:  Andrei Alexandrovich Drevin (1921 – 1996)* *Calculated relationship