The large-scale exposition that the Roman Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova Museum shows from its collection in Daugavpils is dedicated to two bright personalities of Latvian art history, representatives of classical modernism. At the beginning of the 20th century, many family couples are known among modernist artists – Sonja and Robert Delone, Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova, Alexander Vesnin and Lubov Popov, Alexei Kručenih and Olga Rozanov, Gustav Klucin and Nadezhda Udaltsova are examples of brilliant creative tandems. Art historians highlight this fact as a special cultural phenomenon of the early 20th century. In Latvia, such a pair of artists was Romans Suta (1896–1944) and Aleksandrs Beļcovs (1892–1981).
In each of these duos, the relationship was formed according to different scenarios, however, mostly the leading role belonged to men. Romans Suta has been active both as an artist, working in various fields – painting, graphics, scenography, applied art and design, and as a theorist, writing texts on the art of modernism. Alexander Belcov – on the contrary – did not seek publicity, so there may have been a misconception among art critics and viewers of the interwar period that the artist was in the shadow of her husband.
Romans Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova were members of the Riga group of artists. After leaving the group in 1926, they joined a group of artists and poets Green crow. The brightest time of both works is the 1920s. The two were connected by French modernism – cubism, purism, new realism, as evidenced by their paintings and graphics of that time.
In 2017, the Latvian National Museum of Art implemented an ambitious anniversary project Romans Suta – 120. Universal art formula. A little later – at the turn of 2019 and 2020 – visitors were also able to comprehensively get acquainted with the versatile creative heritage of Alexander Beltsova in retrospective. Alexander Beltsov (1892–1981). Painting. Graphics. Workshop Baltars porcelain.
The exhibition in Daugavpils offers a selection of both projects, with a separate hall for each author. In addition to 94 works of painting and graphics (26 – works by Suta, 68 – works by Belcova), 4 large-scale photographs are exhibited, in which both a couple of artists and Roman Suta’s decorations for the 1927 Press Ball are immortalized. Accompanying texts explain the paths of Roman Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova in art and highlight unknown or long-forgotten facts about their creative and family life.
Belcova and Suta are a tandem of two independent creative personalities, each with an individual vector of development. There have been times when their paths have approached and intersected, and there have also been times when everyone has gone their own way and moved away. The brightest episode of their collaboration is the legendary porcelain painting workshop co-founded by Sigismund Vidberg. Baltars (1924–1929). In this exhibition, sketches of Suta and Beļcova’s dish paintings are exhibited, allowing the audience to get to know a small but expressive part of this aspect of creativity as well.
After 1937, Suta and Beļcova’s creative and life paths began to move away. The family even experienced a divorce, but Romans insisted that Alexander agree to remarry. On June 22, 1941, they registered their marriage for the second time, and soon after the German occupation of Latvia began, Suta left her homeland. He went to Georgia, where he started working in a film studio in Tbilisi. The artist was repressed in 1944, but the family only learned about the shooting of Roman Suta only after Stalin’s death. Aleksandra Beļcova continued to live and work in Latvia and died at the age of 89.
The parents’ heritage was preserved and bequeathed to the state by the artist’s daughter Tatjana Suta (1923–2004). Currently, the apartment where they lived has a museum named after Romans Suta and Aleksandras Beļcova (opened to the public in 2008) – a structural unit of the Latvian National Museum of Art.
Exhibition Creative tandem: Romans Suta (1896–1944) and Aleksandra Beļcova (1892–1981) The Daugavpils Local History and Art Museum will be open until January 31.
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