Some of the world’s
greatest engravers had privileged, genteel upbringings before enrolling at art
school and building an international reputation.
In stark contrast,
Lydia Mayorova grew up in poverty, experienced warfare on her doorstep,
developed her skills on the job and was little known outside the organisation
she worked for.
Mayorova (16 December 1927
– 31 December 2008) was born in a village just outside Moscow, ten years after
the Russian Revolution. Life was hard, food shortages were common, and in her
memoirs she recalled how the ink she used at school used to freeze.
Things became even
worse during World War II, when German troops invaded the Soviet Union and
advanced towards Moscow. They were halted, in December 1941, just outside the
village where Mayorova lived.
Her lucky break came in
1943, when the Soviet state printers Goznak, many of whose employees had been
conscripted into the army and were not likely to return from the front, opened
a college to train the engravers of the future. Even though she had no artistic
training, she was awarded a place.
For the new apprentice,
it was like entering heaven. She was given new clothes, and was fed twice a
day, which felt like luxury. The educational
facilities were of a high standard, too, despite the deprivations of war. The
authorities realised the importance of the college, and made sure that it was
not lacking in resources; there was an abundance of copper plates, burins and
magnifiers for the students to work with.
By the end of the training, many of Mayorova’s fellow students had gone and it was only herself and her fellow student Tatyana Nikitina who finished the course. Mayorova’s diploma project was a copper engraving of the head of Michelangelo’s David. Years later, she would get the opportunity to revisit this subject, when she was asked to engrave a similar detail for a 1975 set marking the 500th anniversary of the birth of Michelangelo.
Offered a permanent position at Goznak in 1948, she would remain there for the rest of her career. Not only would she work for the organisation until her retirement in 1983, but she would return the compliment and train a new generation of engravers.
This meant that their work was also largely unknown in the wider art world and ignored in philatelic literature. Only comparatively recently has information about the state’s designers and engravers become publicly available.
What we know is that Mayorova’s first issued stamp was part of the seventh series of the long-running War Orders & Medals theme. She engraved a 5r value depicting the Order of the Red Banner, issued in 1953.
On a visit to Goznak, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was impressed with her work, and especially with a bas-relief of Lenin she had once made. So she was asked to engrave a portrait of Lenin for the 10r note based on that bas-relief of hers. It would be in circulation for 30 years.
Subsequently, stamps would take centre stage in Mayorova’s career. She engraved more than 80 in all, and it was her portraiture that she considered her best work.
As examples of her own favourites she cited portraits of Mikhail Shchepkin, the most famous Russian actor of the 19th century (1963), Karl Marx, the economist and revolutionary communist (1967), and Alexander Suvorov, the 18th-century military hero (1980).
But her all-time favourite stamp was her penultimate one. In 1983, her final year at Goznak, she engraved a very fine stamp marking the 80th anniversary of the birth of the composer Aram Khachaturyan, comprising a profile portrait alongside a page of musical notation.
It was a triumphal way to end a distinguished career, one which deserved greater recognition.
You will find Lydia Mayorova's database HERE.