He was born in 1899 in Kursk, in a railway worker's family, and all his paintings will be permeated with this sense of movement - of rails, speed, flying figures. After attending the Kharkiv Art School and serving in the Red Army, he entered VKhUTEMAS, in the graphic arts department, under Vladimir Favorovsky. From there came a strict graphic discipline: contour, silhouette, rhythm of the spot, which Deineka prioritized over painterly softness for the rest of his life.

In the mid-1920s, he was one of the founders of the Society of Easel Artists (OST) and one of the most published graphic artists in the magazines "The Godless at the Machine" and "Projector." The poster and easel painting became inseparable for him. "Defense of Petrograd" (1928) became one of the most recognizable works of early Soviet art: two opposing lines - heading to the front and returning wounded - are arranged with almost poster-like clarity.

The 1930s gave him European and American experience: Germany, Italy, France, the USA. It was then that "Mother" (1932) and "Future Pilots" (1938) appeared - works where ideology dissolves into pure sensations of light, air, and healthy bodies. The mosaics of "Mayakovskaya" (1938), where the sky looks down on the passenger, won the grand prize at the New York exhibition in 1939.

The war - "Defense of Sevastopol" (1942), painted from photographs and others' stories: white stone, black sea, sailor with a bundle of grenades. His most expressive and most desperate work.

After that - recognition: People's Artist of the USSR, Vice-President of the Academy of Arts, Lenin Prize in 1964 for mosaics, teaching at MARHI. Deineka died in 1969.