Lev Kropivnitsky (Russian, 1922–1995) oil on board painting depicting a bull. Signed lower left and dated 1995. Lev Kropivnitsky was a Soviet painter and graphic artist. In 1939 he entered the Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts. In 1946 he was arrested on a charge of belonging to an anti-Soviet terrorist organization. After rehabilitation in 1956, Kropivnitsky returned to Moscow. From the 1950s he worked at the Combine of decorative and applied arts. There he created posters, and exhibition designs for different exhibitions and museums (the State Literature Museum and the Alexander Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate at Yasnaya Polyana, the T. G. Shevchenko Museum in Kiev, the A. N. Ostrovsky Museum in Shchelykov and others). Kropivnitsky was involved in book graphics and art criticism; more than 10 articles by the artist were published in the Decorative Art magazine. In the early 1960s, Kropivnitsky began to paint in an abstract impressionism manner. The painter participated in many exhibitions: from the 1960s he organized his personal exhibitions, so called apartment exhibitions; and took part in the group exhibitions in Moscow (club Druzhba, 1967).