History
The sculpture was originally created to crown the Soviet pavilion (architect: Boris Iofan) of the World's Fair. The organizers had placed the Soviet and German pavilions facing each other across the main pedestrian boulevard at the Trocadéro on the north bank of the Seine.
Mukhina was inspired by her study of the classical Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Victory of Samothrace and La Marseillaise, François Rude's sculptural group for the Arc de Triomphe, to bring a monumental composition of socialist realist confidence to the heart of Paris. The symbolism of the two figures striding from West to East, as determined by the layout of the pavilion, was also not lost on the spectators.
Although as Mukhina said, her sculpture was intended "to continue the idea inherent in the building, and this sculpture was to be an inseparable part of the whole structure", after the fair the Rabochiy i Kolkhoznitsa was relocated to Moscow where it was placed just outside the Exhibition of Achievements of the People's Economy.
In 1941, the sculpture earned Mukhina one of the initial batch of Stalin Prizes.
The sculpture was removed for restoration in autumn of 2003 in preparation for Expo 2010. The original plan was for it to return in 2005, but because the World's Fair was not awarded to Moscow but to Shanghai, the restoration process was hampered by financial problems and re-installation was delayed. See 2007 photographs of the disassembled statue.
It finally returned to its place at VDNKh on November 28, 2009. The revealing of the restored monument was held on the evening of December 4th, 2009, accompanied by fireworks. The restored statue uses a new pavilion as its pedestal, increasing its total height from 34.5 meters (the old pedestal was 10 meters tall) to 60 meters (the new pavilion is 34.5 meters tall plus 24.5 meters of the statue's own height).
Read more about this topic: Worker And Kolkhoz Woman
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