Arthur Vladimirovich Fonvizin (January 11, 1883, Riga - August 19, 1973, Moscow) - Soviet watercolor painter. He was born on December 30, 1882 (January 11, 1883) in Riga, in a family of a forester of German origin. At the end of the fifth grade of the gymnasium, in 1901 he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. At first, Von Wiesen signed his works. His teachers were K. N. Gorsky, V. N. Baksheev, N. A. Klodt.
At the school, he met Mikhail Larionov, the leader of a youth group ready to «subvert the old art». After the group arranged an exhibition that was not authorized by the school authorities, he was expelled from the school along with Mikhail Larionov and Sergey Sudeikin. In 1904 he moved to Munich, where he continued his studies in the workshop of Gaiman and Gardner. In 1906 he returned to Russia, at first he lived in the village with his parents. From 1907, as a member of the Larionov group, and before the war, he was a noticeable participant in the exhibitions Blue Rose (1907), Stefanos (1909), Youth Union, the first exhibition Jack of Diamonds (December 1910), and the exhibition «Target» and «Donkey's Tail» (1910–12). He participated in the work of the Golden Fleece and Wreath-Stefanos salons, and entered the World of Art. The works of this period can be described as symbolic, in the style of the so-called «lyrical primitive». The most famous works are «The Bride» (1902), «Leda» (1904), «Composition with the figure of Christ» (1904).
After the outbreak of World War I, he moved to the Tambov province, wrote a lot from nature, taught painting. In 1918 he was in charge of the Proletkult art studio in Tambov. In 1922 he became a member of the creative organization «Makovets», participated in its exhibitions. In 1923 he taught at the Nizhny Novgorod art college. In 1926–27 he returned to the Tambov Studio of Fine Arts. In 1927 he returned to Moscow. In 1928 he joined the Society of Moscow Artists and the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. At the same time, he switched to the watercolor technique, which became his vocation for life. In 1929 he visited Leningrad, where he sketched views of the city, in the early thirties he traveled to Kerch and Askania-Nova. Other works of those years are illustrations for «1001 Nights» (1932), «The German Romantic Story» (1936), and the tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann «Baby Tsakhes» (1937).
The first solo exhibition was held at the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin in 1936. In 1937, during the campaign to combat formalism in art, he was ranked by the press as the leader of the «gang of formalists» («three F»: Falk, Favorsky, Fonvizin). From the beginning of the forties to death, the main theme of the artist’s work was portraits of theater actresses in stage costumes, circus figures, sketches from pre-revolutionary life, images of flowers and landscapes. A distinctive feature is that the artist wrote immediately with paints, without a pencil blank.
In 1943, due to German descent, he was deported to Kazakhstan. There the cycles «Karaganda» and «Carriers» were started. From 1958 to 1960, the artist lived in the village of Pirogovo, painted landscapes. As before the war, and after, did not stop exhibiting. In 1970 he received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR. He died on August 19, 1973 in Moscow. He was buried at Vvedensky cemetery.
Paintings and watercolor portraits of actors and artists, landscapes and still lifes of Fonvizin are stored in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the Russian Museum, the Kiev Museum of Art Gallery National Museum (Ukraine). Many works are stored and periodically exhibited by the student of the artist Alla Belyakova.