Acting

Valentina Vagrina

1904-11-03 · Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]

Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1957). One of the last students of Evgeny Vakhtangov, she was an actress at the Vakhtangov Theatre (1921-37, 1946-78). A bright, precise, and intelligent actress, she endured much: both a labor camp and exile (1937-46) as punishment for her repressed husband. In the 1950s, during the "Khrushchev Thaw," she was rehabilitated, but her artistic career never fully recovered; her best creative years were lost forever. She became the wife of the artist N. I. Osenev (1909—1983), whose works she donated to the Russian Cultural Foundation after his death.