Elena Bocharova, the Furniture Designer: from Modernism to the Folk Style

The article is an overview of the biography and artistic career of Elena Sergeevna Bocharova (1929–2018), designer of the All-Union Furniture Design and Technology Institute (Vserossijskij Proektno-Konstruktorskij i Tekhnologicheskij Institut Mebeli, or VPKTIM). The primary sources the research is based on are mentions of Elena Bocharova in Soviet periodicals, Artem Dezhurko’s interview with her colleague and friend Zoya Vattel, and Zoya Vattel’s personal archive. The article includes three sections: Elena Bocharova’s biography, the overview of her projects, and a section about the survived furniture items that can be attributed to her. The author outlines the main periods of Elena Bocharova’s career in VPKTIM and the Institute of Trade and Consumer Services Buildings Design (CNIIEP torgovo-bytovyh zdanij), mentions 18 furniture projects designed in 1956–1986 which can be identified as her works according to primary sources, and characterizes her artistic progress. Elena Bocharova started with the modernist projects in the Thaw era but later became more interested in Russian folk tradition, both as a furniture designer and a master of indoor sculpture. In the final part of the article the author attributes some furniture items owned by the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum to Elena Bocharova.