Nikolai Feshin (1881-1955) was a Russian artist whom the Soviet authorities tried to ignore, so many people discovered his work only in the 1990s, when his paintings were exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery. Feshin himself was by no means a dissident, but he did not want to write paintings in the style of socialist realism, so he emigrated to the United States, where he lived for 32 years, although they can hardly be called particularly happy. We will talk about the unusual fate of Nikolai Feshin and his amazing paintings in this article.
Iya in kimono
Nikolai Feshin was born into the family of an iconostasis master. At first everything was normal, but at the age of four he became seriously ill with meningitis. His father, seeing that his son was getting worse, took drastic measures - he asked for an icon of the Mother of God of Kazan and three times went around the bed with it around the boy, who was practically no longer showing signs of life. And the miracle happened - little Kolya got better, and gradually he recovered. There were no serious consequences, but Kolya became somewhat withdrawn and unsociable, and more than anything in the world loved to draw everything he could see, especially all sorts of landscapes and pictures of horses.
Portrait of Mademoiselle Podbelskaya
But the time for "dabbling" was not too much - had to help his father, who after he went bankrupt and separated from his wife, thoroughly drunk. So it is difficult to call Feshin's childhood happy. But all this helped to forge character and special persistence in achieving the goal. He graduated from an ordinary and art school in Kazan and went to St. Petersburg to study to be an artist. In the Academy of Arts he was not accepted, but was lucky to get a job in the school at the Academy and not to anyone, and Ilya Repin himself. Nikolai Feshin so liked the great realist, he said without false modesty: "he is the most talented of today's artists.
Lady in purple
Gradually Feshin developed his signature style - a wide impressionist stroke with the active use of mastichin. He somehow immediately became quite a sought-after artist, but at first he had to do a lot of purely artisanal artwork "to earn money" - to draw Art Nouveau posters, posters, book and magazine illustrations.
A street in the village. Illustration to the book by Z.M.Slavyanova
It turned out that the schedule he is excellent, can work quickly enough and efficiently, good to master anything for sale accustomed from childhood.
In 1905-1907 he took up quite provocative "revolutionary" paintings, which for good reason were not allowed to exhibit to the general public.
1905 at the factory
Feshin was always passionate about artwork, however, he found time to travel to Europe and marry his student Alexandra Belkovich. Family life forced to somewhat reduce the ardor, but still wrote a lot and very high quality.
Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya
It was worse after 1917. Avant-gardism and socialist realism became fashionable, which Feshin was not too attracted to. To make ends meet and win the loyalty of the authorities had to write several portraits of Soviet leaders, but they came out frankly unsuccessful.
Portrait of Lenin
Feshin felt that he was a stranger in this country, he began to have a creative crisis and he seriously considered emigration.
However, it was possible to move to America only in 1932, and that was due to an extremely fortunate coincidence. Feshin immediately begins to work - to write a lot of portraits, which depict African-American women. He had never seen black girls before and they attracted him with their exotic beauty.
Naked African-American woman
But Feshin was sick with tuberculosis, so he had to move from New York to the city of Taos, located in the state of New Mexico. There he built an amazing house, combining the traditions of Mexican architecture outside and Russian interior inside. Feshin personally carved many elements out of wood - chests, doors, stair railings and so on. However, he had to work more at night, and during the day he painted and taught, so one can only admire his diligence.
Interior of the artist's house in Taos
Feshin happily absorbed the new culture - for example, he painted several portraits of Indians. However, life in America is difficult to call serene - his wife thought to write his novel and become famous not only as the wife of the famous artist, but nothing worked out - the novel came out frankly unsuccessful, sold poorly, and Alexandra Belkovich ended her life in poverty.
Bathhouse
However, the last days of Feshin himself were not better - he remained alone, earned money by private lessons and quietly died in his sleep, probably immensely sad for his abandoned homeland, which, despite all his talent, he was not needed.
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