Vitold K. Byalynitsky-Birulya (1872-1957) was a Russian, Soviet and Byelorussian landscape painter, a People’s Artist of the BSSR (1944) and RSFSR (1947), Full Member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1947).
He was born on January 31 (February 12), 1872, in the Mogilev Province of the Russian Empire. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, at the course conducted by S. Korovin, V. Polenov, and I. Pryanishnikov. In Moscow, he made an acquaintance of I. Levitan and worked in his studio.
Vitold K. Byalynitsky-Birulya is considered an unsurpassed master of impressionistic landscape: lyrically-emotional, heartfelt, tender and sad. The painter's brushwork is characterized by lightness, a silver-smoky color scheme, halftones, elegance and virtuosity in the solution of general coloristic tasks. The canvases feature the most natural, everyday nature prospects: a blooming meadow, an ice-covered river, a path in an autumn park, an old rickety house. The artist also devised a special type of landscape, that is, a memorial landscape, dedicated to places associated with the life and work of prominent cultural figures, such as Alexander Pushkin, Peter Tchaikovsky and others.
Vitold K. Byalynitsky-Birulya is the author of nearly 2,000 artworks, most of which are in major museums in Russia and Belarus. Besides, the artist’s works have always been popular with collectors and enter in numerous private collections. Some of the most famous of his paintings are In Early Spring (1912), Crimea. Blooming May (1912), Gray Day (between 1917 and 1920), Spring Torrents (1930), and Summerhouse in Gorki in Autumn (1924).
The margins of the block feature a portrait of Vitold K. Byalynitsky-Birulya (A. Moravov, 1908, National Museum of Art of the Republic of Belarus) against the interior of the Chaika country house; the stamp provides a copy of painting Gray Day by V. Byalynitsky-Birulya (between 1917 and 1920, State Russian Museum).
In addition to the issue of the postal block, JSC Marka produced First Day Covers and special cancels for Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as illustrated envelopes for the postal block with labels and a First Day Cover with a cancel for Moscow and the second emission type: an imperforated postal block made on canvas-type design paper.
Design Artist: O. Savina.
Face value: 150 rubles.
Block size: 115×83 mm, stamp size in the block: 50×37 mm.
Quantity: 25 thousand blocks (first emission type); 5.3 thousand blocks (second emission type).
« back