Konstantin Melnikov

Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov was a Russian architect and painter. His architectural work, compressed into a single decade , placed Melnikov on the front end of 1920s avantgarde architecture. Although associated with the Constructivists, Melnikov was an independent artist, not bound by the rules of a particular style or artistic group. In 1930s, Melnikov refused to conform with the rising Stalinist architecture, withdrew from practice and worked as a portrait painter and teacher until the end of his life.

Konstantin Melnikov was born and died in Moscow. He was the fourth child of the family. His father, Stepan Illarionovich Melnikov, originally from Nizhny Novgorod region, was a road maintenance foreman, employed by the Moscow Agricultural Academy. Mother, Yelena Grigorievna , came from the peasants of Zvenigorod district. The whole family occupied a single room of a statemanaged working class barrack in Hay Lodge , then a quiet northern suburb of Moscow. Melnikovs tried hard to rise above bitter poverty, to return to farming and eventually relocated to their own small house and set their own dairy farm. Konstantin Melnikov later praised his father, who noticed the little boys addiction to drawing and regularly brought him scrap paper for drawing from the Academy. However, all the education they could afford was a twoyear parish school .

Source: Wikipedia