Khokhlovkina Elsa

Elsa Khokhlovkina was born in 1934 in the city of Donetsk, in the family of a mining engineer. In 1946 she entered Moscow secondary art school where she studied under the guidance of А. А.Minaev, N. K.Solomin and А. P.Gorsky. Having left school with honors Elsa entered the Moscow State Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov where she was lucky to study under the supervision of such great masters as P. D.Pokarjevskiy, P. P. Sokolov-Skalya and N.P. Khristolubov.

In 1951, being yet a 17-year-old student of an art school, Elsa together with her classmate wangled an invitation to the studio of А.А.Plastov, who welcomed the “gatecrashers", showed them his pencil drawings and recommended studying French impressionism. After defending her diploma, Elsa asked for the permission to work with the Academician А.А.Plastov as her curator to later brilliantly cope with her first post-degree order called “Folk masters". One of her paintings from the series named “Khokhloma craftswomen" is presented at the Museum of Russian Art in the city of Kazan.

Starting from 1958 the artist has actively participated in youth, municipal and regional exhibitions; and in 1967 she was awarded a diploma for her participation in the exhibition “Moscow artists – to the 50 ^th anniversary of the October". The painter's first personal show took place in spring 1974 in the foyer of the “Khudozhestvenny" movie theater in Moscow. The exhibition was opened by the RSFSR People's Artist А.А.Tutunov. The young artist has also been greatly influenced by her long-standing friendship with Nadezhda Udaltsova, which started in her student years.

Since 1965 and for half-a-century the artist was employed by the Art Works where she obtained a wonderful opportunity to travel across the country, to visit Sakhalin, Kamchatka and Transbaikal, executing large-scale orders and getting familiar with genuine everyday life of the people inhabiting these stunningly beautiful areas of the Soviet Union.

In 1975 Khokhlovkina purchased a country house in Yaroslavl area, where she regularly does winter plein-air. Her arsenal includes a rich collection of splendid winter landscapes and sketches. “Unfortunately, says the artist, Russian village, alive and well-organized is becoming obsolete… I wanted to capture this vanishing scenery. The coziness of the old Russian household."

With the beginning of perestroika the artist got a chance to see the museums of Europe and to show her own artworks to the world. She has taken part in exhibitions in Japan, China and Finland.

The artist of realistic tradition Elsa Khokhlovkina never compromises her integrity: “I am a traditional artist. I am not looking for new forms, I have only my view, my vision and my attitude to the surrounding world". Her paintings are bright and full of sunlight 1950s, bristling with optimism, children's portraits, still lifes, forest, city and country landscapes of the 1960s, genre canvases of the 1970s and contemporary artworks combining all the aforesaid. In 1995 as the result of her trip to Paris Khokhlovkina created her Paris collection.

Elsa Khokhlovkina's artworks are presented in the galleries of Paris, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Barnaul, Kazan, Transbaikal, Turkmenia, Tadjikistan, Japan, Finland and Moldova.