| Vladimir Ivanovich Berdnikov | |
| Birth Date: | 2 June 1946 |
| Nationality: | Russian |
| Field: | painting, glass art |
| Alma Mater: | Smolensk State Pedagogical Institute |
Vladimir Berdnikov (born 2 June 1946, Koszalin, Sheinsky Voivodeship, Polish People's Republic) is a Russian painter, glass artist,[1] and artist of decorative and applied arts. He is notable for receiving Honored Artist of Russia award (1991) and for being a member of the Union of Artists and member of the Union of Designers of Russia.
Vladimir Berdnikov was born in the city of Koszalin in Poland in 1946, where his father worked. In 1949, the family left Poland for the Bryansk region of Russia.[2] In 1963 he graduated from the Zaborsk high school in the Smolensk region.In 1968, he graduated from Smolensk Pedagogical Institute with a degree in graphic design. The artist was engaged in easel and monumental painting, as well as sculpture. His graduation work was a mosaic panel titled (when translated),"Girl on a Horse", 12 square meters in size. meters made of natural stone.Starting in 1968, he worked as an artist for the Pervomaisky Glass Factory (since 1970 – Chief Artist of Pervomaisky Glass Factory). At the factory, he began to manufacture blown glass products. All exhibitions of products of the Pervomaisky Glass Factory are necessarily accompanied by Berdnikov's picturesque canvases. His works were in the Fund of the USSR Ministry of Culture. The paintings are currently kept in the Roslavl Museum, the Crystal Museum in the city of Dyatkovo, the Smolensk Museum-Reserve, in a private art gallery in New York, in private collections in Russia and abroad. Glass products are in many museums in Russia and abroad.[3]
Berdnikov is credited as the inventor of two new techniques for the production of glass products. His "know-how" is the development of glassware with a change in the axis of rotation (without knowing this technique, even a glazier can hardly guess how such an effect of forming colored glass is achieved), and the development of products on a "crumpled" leg.[4]
His works are kept in Smolensk museums, in private collections in the USA, Japan, and Germany. Works mainly with colored glass. Especially famous are his vases 'Rose', 'Necklace', 'Lanterns', 'Branches', 'Fireworks', author's works 'Blue Birds', 'Smolensk Fortress'. His works are distinguished by strict architectonics, methods of folk craftsmanship and new modern forms. He creates both exhibition works and works of a utilitarian nature.
″Berdnikov was able to determine early on the basic principles of his artistic vision and find his own recognizable manner of conveying thoughts and feelings. The unifying principle in the artist's work can be considered color: saturated, thickening to blackness in glass and acquiring a strange orange reflection of the fire burning in glass furnaces in painting. Thanks to this shade, Berdnikov's landscapes, painted among the Smolensk and Bryansk hills and quite recognizable from the composition, disturb the viewer with their "otherness", as if they were seen through the eyes of an alchemist. The original color scheme on the master's canvases emphasizes the pasty, rough as dross, smear. It's funny, but the two passions of the artist – Painting and Glass, seem to be playing in shape-shifters, and oil paints freeze hard, dense, rough, and hard glass gives the impression of a living and pulsating mass.″– N. Vostrikova, "Bee", 7. 2006.[5]