Biography of Alexei Zel

Get one most read article once a day. Join us on Facebook and VKontakte. Subscription can be unsubscribed at any time. It is not easy to work with glass, but in talented hands the result is worth the effort, and sometimes surpasses all expectations. So Alexei Zely, combining the talent of an artist and master-virtuoso, for 40 years created unique and inimitable masterpieces made of quartz glass in a style unconventional for world glass.

That is why amazing sophisticated works that do not have global analogues give the master the full right to be the brilliant self -taught, which glorified our land, counted for the wonderful galaxy. Alexey Olegovich Zel - Soviet and Russian artist, master of art glass. In the year, for his contribution to the development of decorative and applied art and skill, he was awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia.

His extraordinary beauty of creation was recognized not only by lovers of applied art, but also by experts of the highest level of global scale. Alexey Olegovich Zel is a national artist and a real wizard, in whose hands a hot transparent amorphous mass turned into something masterpiece. Master-school Alexei Zel, inspired by the motives of nature and the environment, developed a wide range of ways to process quartz glass during his creative career.

And as a result of many years of hard work, he left behind a huge number of unique works that scattered around the world as valuable gifts and souvenirs. But the part that remained in the family collection was handed over to the artist in the year to the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts. This happened a year before the death of the master.

Since then, these amazing works have been exhibited in the constant exposition of the museum, collecting thousands of fans and lovers of glass masterpieces. Fragments of compositions. Quartz glass composition. Author: Alexey Zelya. Many, looking at these magical incredibly sophisticated works of the master, will probably ask the question: what is quartz glass, what is its peculiarity?

For reference: quartz glass is obtained during the melting of one of the varieties of rock crystal, housing quartz, quartz sand, as well as synthetic silicon dioxide. It does not crack at a sharp temperature difference. And thanks to this, products from such glass withstand large thermal loads and are in the hands of a talented master of almost jewelry processing. And at the same time, dealing with a quartz glass is like a mineral work, you can make a mistake only once, that is why in the soul of little Alyosha from early childhood a sense of admiration for the beauty of the world around him was born.

The young naturalist, spending the summer holidays in the village, spent hours in the field for hours, observing the work of ants, spiders, and various bugs. And when he grew up, he began to celebrate and classify birds in his diary, study plants, their species. Seeing his son big inclinations, parents did not even doubt that his future was behind biology. Alexey himself sacredly believed in this.

Moreover, having served 3 years in the army, he became a student of the biofacment of Moscow State University, and exemplary. But then fate intervened. Once, in summer practice, a young man met a modest and charming girl, a junior student named Olya. This fateful meeting was a turning point in Alexei's life. The marriage and birth of the daughter forced the newly made head of the family to make a balanced, although painful decision, to leave their studies at the university and go to work, because it could not afford Alexei Zel to transfer responsibility for the maintenance of his family to the shoulders of his parents.

Basket with flowers. Thus, in the year at the Moscow electric lamp factory, making quartz lamps, Alexei not only got acquainted with amazing material, he succumbed to the magic of melting quartz glass, imbued with a love of his plasticity and properties to reflect and transmit light. Here, in the production workshop, not only the labor activity of yesterday’s student began, but also his new biography.

The biography of a high-class glass artist for the manufacture of quartz glass souvenir products. Quartz glass. Having quickly mastered the technique, the time in the free time between the shifts began to creatively experiment with the glass, smelting figures of various animals, birds and simple natural forms from it. Owing to the next workpiece in the flame of the burner, a lively imagination carried away the failed biologist from the cramped factory workshop to the corners of wildlife familiar from childhood, restoring everything to the smallest details in memory.

Seven years in the role of the “court artist” in the year, the factory’s leadership drew attention to the unique talent of its employee and specially built a creative workshop for it, where the potion begins to “work for the government”. True, so far only a nameless artist.The Kremlin on behalf of the country distributed his work to political figures of different countries, including France President Francois Mitteran, British Prime Minister Margaret Tetcher, Prime Minister of Sweden Polom Palma and other senior faces.

Of course, that the members of the Politburo themselves did not leave without presents. Rare birthdays did without exclusive souvenirs from the glass of Alexei Zel. The artist himself recalled: “The principle was simple:“ boys ” - ships,“ girls ” - baskets. Nothing else was required. ” The artist never learned about the fate of many of his works, since his name was not mentioned anywhere.

But as compensation, he was allowed to create "for himself" in his free from public orders. And at this time, the potion is graduating from an absentee folk University of Arts and becomes a certified artist. Quartz glass flower compositions. So, over the years improving his technique, a tremendous experience came to the master of glasses, as well as artistic skill, which embodied in elegant candlesticks, baskets with flowers, sophisticated sailboats, which have become a kind of test for a sense of rhythm and composition.

Alexei Olegovich should be said about the glass sailing fleet separately. For all the creative activities of the master, he created just an immense number of various brigs, caravels, frigates, galleons. And this is starting with simple single -color models, such as Galeon, to compositions, and the “sails of Russia” “Empire”, “Ryabinka”, “Grapes”, “Latgale” no less approval and admiration, starting with simple and ending incredibly skillful in technique, such as a nine -all -the -stand.

“Latgale” and complex artistic and composite works - as “mountain ash”, “grapes” of the exhibition and awards, however, very soon, the perestroika began its adjustments to the artist’s creative fate - in M ​​he enters the cooperative, equips a new workshop and begins to develop exhibition activities. And despite the fact that Alexei Olegovich at that time repeatedly made tempting offers - to live and work in Sweden, to sell all the work of the Japanese and so on a similar kind, he flatly refused, motivating that only on his native land he could truly be inspired.

Quartz glass compositions. The first personal exposition of the artist took place in the year at VDNH, where the gold medal was marked. By the way, in the Soviet period of the work of the potion in collective expositions, they were invariably marked by high awards and diplomas. Since that time, more exhibitions have passed in the cities of Russia and the CIS countries that have visited hundreds of thousands of spectators.

Experiments, searches, finds of the last 20 years of life Alexei Zelya lived in his house in the suburbs, where a workshop was equipped on the ground floor. Here, in parallel with work, the artist was engaged in research, experimenting with color. To the transparent, yellow, white, he managed to add red, green, blue, pink, blue, plus various options for transfusing coatings for transparent glass.

But to create such a bright palette, the master studied special literature for several years, cooked new shifts, tested them, and made records of the results. Again, a scientist woke up in him, and the workshop turned into a laboratory. The result of this titanic labor was many discoveries in artistic fibitively, which are widely used by masters today. So the nugget Alexei Zel did not become a biologist, but became a national artist of Russia.

Looking at the creations of the hands of the masters, as they say - from God, we begin to understand that there are no limits to the genius of creative thought and imagination of a talented person. This is exactly what comes to mind when you see creations created from Muranian glass, which was invented more than years ago. Did you like the article? Then support us, press:.