Vasily Vasilievich Meshkov (1893-1963) - Russian and Soviet painter, son of the artist V. N. Meshkov. People's Artist of the RSFSR (1963). Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the third degree (1951). Meshkov V.V. from 1907 to 1908 studied at his father's art school, which was located in Moscow and in which V.I. Surikov, V.M. Vasnetsov came to the final views of the students' works.
In 1909-1916 he combined studies with his father and at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture with K. A. Korovin, S. V. Ivanov, A. M. Korin. In 1911 he joined the Wanderers. During the training, I. E. Repin and V. E. Makovsky were invited to participate in the 39th, 43rd and 44th exhibitions of the Wanderers. At the beginning of his work he painted mainly city landscapes. After graduating from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Meshkov went to continue his education abroad.
Returning to Russia in 1914, when the First World War began, he was mobilized as an artist and traveled extensively on the fronts with the Army Headquarters, creating many sketches about the war. After 1917, the artist leaves a favorite historical theme and becomes a theater artist. In 1922, V.V. Meshkov joined the Academy of Arts of Revolutionary Russia and addressed the topics of the October Revolution and the Civil War (a series of studies «October in Moscow» and others). He participated in the creation of the panorama «Assault Perekop».
A trip to the Crimea and the Caucasus in 1924-1925 was a boundary in the creative biography of V.V. Meshkov: he became interested in landscape. During the Great Patriotic War, the artist makes several trips to the front, according to the results of which in 1944 he created the works «After the Enemy», «Following the Traces of the Invaders». Сreated a series of paintings under the general title «On the Fascist Retreat Roads».
V.V. Meshkov worked a lot and fruitfully in his favorite landscape genre. His landscape paintings are characterized by a special majestic and severe interpretation of Russian nature («The Tale of the Urals», 1949, «Kama», 1950, «Golden Autumn in Karelia», «Winter Day. Moscow Region», 1940 and etc.). Full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1958).
V.V. Meshkov died in 1963. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery (plot number 8).
The artist's paintings are in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Museum of Russian Art in Kiev, in the museums of Novokuznetsk, Ryazan, Sochi, Tomsk, Feodosia and in private collections.
