Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Surround Orphans with Affection

Preview image of work. lithograph on paper, Surround Orphans with Affection 33078

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Surround Orphans with Affection

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Artist

Nikolai Nikolaevich Zhukov (1908 - 1973)

Title

Surround Orphans with Affection

Creation Date

1947

Century

mid-20th century

Dimensions

25 1/2 x 32 1/4 in. (64.77 x 81.92 cm)

Object Type

Creation Place

Asia, Russia

Medium and Support

lithograph on paper

Credit Line

Generously lent by Svetlana and Eric Silverman ’85, P’19

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Here a mother shows how to surround orphans with affection, emulating an example set by a higher authority—Stalin himself. A small poster in the background depicts him as the ultimate paterfamilias of the Soviet people. This background image of Stalin holding a flower-bearing Buryat girl, Gelia Markizova, in his arms conceals the darker story about this orphan. It is based on a photograph from 1936. A year later, Gelia’s father, Ardan Markizov, the Second Secretary of Buryat-Mongolian ASSR, was arrested as a Japanese spy and shot. Her mother was also arrested and sent to southern Kazakhstan, where she died. The early image of Gelia, however, continued to be widely circulated in both postcards and posters.