Too Sexy For Stalin: Russian Rowers Embrace Oar Girl Statue

MSNBC ^ | September 03, 2011

[Steelfish]

Too Sexy For Stalin: Russian Rowers Embrace Oar Girl Statue A copy of banished nude — (pic in URL) adopted by rowing association as new symbol — has been installed in Moscow's Gorky Park

"Girl With an Oar," a copy of the 1934 original sculpture by Ivan Shadr, rises on the bank of the Moskva River in Gorky Park in Moscow, is due to be unveiled Saturday.

9/3/2011 The artist may have been a favorite of Stalin, but Ivan Shadr's statue "Girl With an Oar" proved too sexy for the Soviet dictator.

The 23-foot nude statue, sculpted in 1934, was banished from pride of place in Moscow's Gorky Park to Ukraine in 1936 and replaced with a less sensual version, The Wall Street Journal reported.

However, a copy of the original was due to be unveiled Saturday on the bank of the Moskva River in the park at the finish line of an international regatta course, the paper said.

The replacement, still nude but apparently more tasteful, was destroyed in World War II; Shadr died of an illness in 1941 and the model for the statue, Vera Voloshina, was captured and killed by German forces, the WSJ reported.

But the statue is being given new life with Yulia Anikeyeva, a Soviet rowing champion and executive director of the Russian Amateur Rowing Association, telling the paper it had been adopted as the association's symbol.

"We want to show that we now live in a different country. The notion that she must be dressed — that's changed," she added.

Imitations of the statue — that did not fall foul of the state censors — were put up throughout various parks, often dressed tastefully in track suit swimwear and swimwear. Those tarnished the memory of the original, which became something of a joke,....

[Cheburashka]

For your inspection:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44382482/ns/world_news-europe/#.TmKCrGGqgmY

Scroll down.

[Charles Martel]

Imitations of the statue — that did not fall foul of the state censors — were put up throughout various parks, often dressed tastefully in track suit swimwear and swimwear.

This makes me think of that old Wendy's TV commercial with the "Soviet fashion show".

[Moltke]

Forget Stalin, John Ashcroft would throw a hissy-fit over this.

[katana]

Хорошая жопа.

Yes, very nice bootsky.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

Artistically the sculpture is crap. Like all fascist state approved artworks, it is bland beyond belief, totally lacking in a dynamic play of light and shadow and belies a cartoonish understanding of the human form and its musculature. You want naturalistic human form sculpture that will set your esthetic eyeballs on a safari of discovery, go with Michelangelo and Rodin.

[ApplegateRanch]

Too soft, not enough muscles; it is obvious she doesn't put her back into it. Probably just rests on the oar, letting her seat mate do all the heavy pulling.

And, in the absence of welts on her back, the sexist coxswain let's her get away with it, instead of applying the lash.

[ApplegateRanch]

Looks more like the rowing prize, than a rower.

[ApplegateRanch]

Minerva.

[the invisib1e hand]

thank you, you’re a true FRiend.

[AnAmericanMother]

Not sure that's right -- you will never (or hardly ever) see Minerva (Athene) without her clothes on. She's a chaste maiden goddess, like Diana (Artemis).

I was thinking vaguely of a Roman copy of the Cnidian Aphrodite, but I still think it's a copy of something later, Canova-ish.