Description of the picture:
“The end”. The last days of Hitler’s bid in the dungeon of the Reich Chancellery – Kukryniksy: M. V. Kupriyanov, P. N. Krylov, N. A. Sokolov. 1947-1948. Canvas, oil. 200×251
Kukryniksy – one of a kind triple community of artists. The friendship and joint work of Mikhail Vasilievich Kupriyanov, Porfiry Nikitich Krylov and Nikolai Alexandrovich Sokolov began even as a student. The range of activities of Kukryniksy is very wide and diverse. The authors of large thematic paintings on canvas, they also write chamber lyrical landscapes (each separately), illustrate works of classical literature. But most of all, Kukryniksy are known as wonderful masters of political satire. In the poster, “TASS Windows”, on the pages of magazines and newspapers during the Great Patriotic War, their cartoons appeared mercilessly stigmatizing Hitler and his minions, the moral insignificance, bestial nature of these unfortunate conquerors.
Therefore, quite naturally and naturally, the artists arose in the days of the victory over fascist Germany the desire to show in their new painting with all reliability the deserved end of the “heroes” of their cartoons. To this end, they visited Berlin, carefully studied historical materials, went down to the shelter, where Hitler was hiding in the last days of the war. The Kukryniksy sought to convey as convincingly and more accurately as possible the state of the Nazis who understood their imminent end at the moment when a volley of Soviet guns was heard above their very head, which crushed, destroyed the appearance of comfort established in the shelter, the illusion of the possibility of salvation, making it possible to clearly feel the whole reality of what was happening. This volley мейд the demoniac Fuhrer jump out of his personal bunker. His miserable figure with convulsive movements, a physiognomy distorted by fear, was sharply torn out by light from the gaping blackness of the doorway. Goebbels, scared, is barely visible behind him. In the room where the Fuhrer’s bodyguards are sitting, no one thinks about him, nobody cares here, everything here speaks of the inglorious end of the Nazis."