User:Vivianhayes154/Michael Gabriel Chepouroff

July 19, 2014

MICHAEL GABRIEL CHEPOURKOFF From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Michael Chepourkoff (November 12, 1899 – March 13, 1955). Known as the “Tin Can” artist, Russian born, San Francisco based, created five large sculptures for the North Court of the Federal Building for the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition held on Treasure Island, San Francisco. His painting “The Blessed and The Wretched,” depicting graft among San Francisco’s police and politicians in 1937, caused such a stir in the San Francisco Art Association’s show, that some city officials wanted it removed from the show.

CONTENTS

1. Biography 2. References. 3. External Links.

BIOGRAPHY

Michael Chepourkoff was born in Luhansk, Ukraine, November 12, 1899, which was then part of Russia. His mother was Anna, father, Gabriel Chepourkoff. He had two older brothers, Peter and John, and a younger sister, Polya.His father managed a state (Czar) owned liquor store, and the family was among the educated class, above the peasants of the time. Gabriel was killed in the 1905 Revolution.

Chepourkoff’s mother married another merchant, Sergei Kriukoff, shortly after Gabriel’s death and the family moved to Siberia where Chepourkoff went to school. He was chosen by the government to study medicine, to become a doctor. He attended Real School, a combination high school and junior college, in Blagoveshchensk on the Amur River in Siberia.

In 1919 he was sent to the government military school in Khabarovsk, and was conscripted into the White army to fight the Bolshevik’s Red Army. When Commander Kolchak’s part of the White Army lost the war, Chepourkoff and his fellow troups crossed the frozen Amur to Harbin, Manchuria. Chepourkoff worked in the military hospital until 1923. When China forced the Russians to leave Manchuria, Chepourkoff went to Japan, and led a group of students to San Francisco, CA, in 1923.

Chepourkoff obtained work at Gladding McBean Ceramic Company in Lincoln, CA from 1923 to 1926. In 1926, he entered the University of California at Berkeley with advanced standing as he scored so high on placement tests. He drew political cartoons for the student newspaper, The Daily Californian. He was a member of Lincoln Letters and Science Epsilon, Little Theater Art Staff, and U.C. Life Corps. As a senior, He won first place in a contest to design a medal for the Benjamin Ide Wheeler Memorial Award, for the City of Berkeley.

After his graduation with Highest Honors in 1929, Chepourkoff worked as an artist whenever he could. He continued his art studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and received a Master of Arts degree in 1933. He had his first art exhibition in September, 1931 of drawings and watercolors

In 1933, he wrote a script for his own ballet, “Flame Flower,” and created seventeen metal plates depicting the ballet’s characters. These were shown at Gump’s art gallery, San Francisco, November, 1933. These designs were Art Deco style. During his studies at the University, he met fellow art student, Ofa Hayes, and married her in 1933. They had two children, Gaylan and Vivian. Ofa divorced him in 1938.

During the Depression, Chepourkoff was part of the US government’s Federal Art Project, and the WPA. He joined the San Francisco Art Museum’s San Francisco Art Association, and started showing his many etchings, watercolors, oils, and sculptures at the Museum’s shows. He showed at their exhibitions from 1937 to 1953. Seven of his etchings are in the Museum’s collections.

In 1937, newspaper clippings showed headlines of outrage among city officials about Chepourkoff’s painting, “The Blessed and The Wretched ,” depicting a criminal and a prostitute giving money to a politician and a policeman, with St. Francis (San Francisco) standing behind them. Some city officials wanted the painting removed from the show. It was not. In 1939, Chepourkoff’s large metal sculptures of mountain climbers, a hiker, a skier, horseback rider, and a fisherman were shown at the Golden Gate Exposition, Treasure Island, San Francisco. As a WPA artist, Chepourkoff was not given credit for his work in the official catalogue of the exhibition. These sculptures disappeared after the Exposition was over and have never been located.

From March, 1940, to June, 1940, Chepourkoff was married to Willa Henselin, who went by the name Helen. She divorced him in June, 1940.

After the beginning of World War II, Chepourkoff worked in the sheet metal trade, repairing ships in San Francisco. He married Virginia Young in 1946, and had four daughters, Anna, Gayla, Tanya and Patricia. Virginia separated from Chepourkoff after Patricia was born, but was not divorced from him at the time of his death from a heart attack March 13, 1955. His ashes were scattered at sea.

References: <Hughes, Edan “Artists in California, 1796-1940.> <Who’s Who in American Art 1940-53.>

<Dawdy, Doris, Artists of the American West.>

<San Francisco newspaper clippings from the San Francisco Public Library Historical Records Section, covering the years 1929 to 1955.>

<Berkeley Gazette, 1=26-29,

> <Oakland Tribune, 1-25-29,>

<San Francisco Examiner, 1-30-29,>

<Oakland Times, 1-25-29,>

<Oakland Tribune, 8-31-31,>

<Oakland Tribune, 4-25-32,>

<an article no name of paper 11-5-33,>

<an article about his marriage, 5-28-33,no name of paper.>

<San Francisco Call Bulletin, 4-1-37,>

<San Francisco Chronicle, 4-1-37,>

<Los Angeles Times, 1938,>

<San Francisco Examiner, 4-9-39,>

<an article about his divorce from second marriage, 6-24-40,no name of paper.>

<San Francisco Chronicle, 3-16-41,>

<San Francisco Examiner, 4-3-49,>

<Popular Mechanics, May, 1950,>

<article, 9-2-52,>

<obituary, 3-17-55.>

External Links:

U tube video, “Portrait of an Artist,” about Chepourkoff by his grandson, Duke Rightious. Ask/Art Michael Gabriel Chepourkoff biography. Benny Bufano, Wikipedia, A contemporary of Chepourkoff’s Dong Kingman, Wikipedia, A contemporary of Chepourkoff’s.