Gennadi Yakovlevich Brusentsov was born on October 14, 1927 in Leningrad. He belonged to the war generation. Brusentsov was fourteen and living in Leningrad at the beginning of the Siege. He returned from evacuation and began his education in 1945.

He attended the Stiglitz School of Technical Drawing, re-named the Vera Mukhina Higher School of Art and Design where he studied monumental and decorative painting. His teachers included P. Sidorov, A. Kazantsev, and G. Pavlovsky. After graduation (1953) Brusentsov was sent to teach in Turkmenistan at the Ashgabat Art College.

Brusentsov began exhibiting in republican, all-Union and foreign exhibitions and became a Member of the National Union of Artists in 1954. He combined teaching and his own painting in Turkmenistan for more than a decade.

In 1969 Brusentsov left Turkmenistan to settle with his family in Sevastopol on the Black Sea coast. The freshness and vibrancy of the Crimean landscape caused a surge of creative activity and allowed him to quickly feel comfortable in the new artistic environment.

During the Sevastopol period, the artist devoted many works to the Great Patriotic War theme. “Almond blooms” (1974), now in the Kherson Art Museum, is widely believed to be one of the most profound and at the same time lyrical works about the war.

Brusentsov was interested in the life of modern sailors, residents of Sevastopol, and nature of Crimea. In Ashgabat, he had become accustomed to communicating and interacting openly with the locals. This same habit led to his Sevastopol workshop becoming a hub of creative debate filled with numerous friends.

Brusnetsov was awarded the titles Honored Artist of the USSR (1982) and Honored Artist of Ukraine.

During the 1990s, Brusnetsov became acquainted with the rector of St. Nicholas Church, Father Georgy. Spiritual need and circumstances pushed the artist to a completely new kind of art – icon painting.

In recent years, the artist also worked in the field of monumental art. He devoted considerable time to the restoration of mosaics in the St. Nicholas Church, among them one of the pearls of the Temple – an image of myrrh-bearers. According to the artist’s sketches, mosaic icons were made at the entrance to the chapel of St. George the Victorious on Sapun-Gora, the main icon of the chapel is St. George the Victorious written by the Brusnetsov himself.

Gennadi Yakovlevich Brusentsov died on April 1, 2006 at 78 years of age.

Personal exhibitions were held in museums and exhibition halls of Sevastopol, Yalta, Kiev, Nikolaev, in private galleries in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Works of the painter are held in the collections of: the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Museum of Oriental Art, the Theater Museum of Bakhrushin, the State Museum of Fine Arts of Turkmenistan, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Kherson Art Museum, the Sevastopol Art Museum, the Museum of Heroic Defense of Sevastopol, the Lugansk Art Museum, the Collection of the Directorate of Exhibitions of the Union of Artists of Russia (former USSR), the Collection of the Directorate of Exhibitions of the Union of Artists of Ukraine, private collections of the USA, England, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.

Gennadi Brusentsov

Untitled (Two Oriental Women)