Alexey Yupatov

Alexey Yupatov (18th of October 1911, Riga, Russian Empire – 9th of November 1975, Riga, Latvian SSR) – displayed his greatest talents in the fields of panel graphics and bookplates. He designed around 600 bookplates. In 1936 Yupatov attained an honorary diploma at the Bookmark international exhibition in Los Angeles.

Alexey Yupatov was born in Riga in an Old-believer family. He graduated from Latvian Academy of Arts. For the first time, Yupatov participated in the exhibition of Russian artists, which was organized by the Organizing Committee of the Days of Russian Culture in 1930.

Yupatov was widely known as a book illustrator and creator of bookplates. In 1937 he published his first book "Russian Graphics and Books" (10 exemplars), which contained his own bookplates, as well as works by N. Puzyrevsky. In the same year he published "Bookplates by Alexey Yupatov" for the Russian Cultural-Historical Museum in Prague. (The museum was established in 1933 by the Russian Free University and was the only such institution of Russia Abroad. Works by Russian exhiled artists were exhibited there).

A. Yupatov worked on the album "Russian Art Abroad", which was published in Prague in 1938. He also worked in the field of icon-painting. His mentor in this genre was a Riga Old-believer icon-painter Constantine Pavlov.

Especial place in the art of Yupatov belongs to the drawings of the Moscow suburb of Riga. The artist was also working in the field of theatre decorations.

In Soviet times his main interests remained graphics and bookplates.

Alexey Yupatov had a daughter Ariadna (1938-2005) - an art critic and a long-time employee of the Museum of Foreign Art.

Alexey was a nephew of Ivan Yupatov (1865-1944).

Tatiana Feigmane