Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kuznetsov was a Russian painter. He was famous for the paintings of rural Russia, including portraits of peasants, and genre scenes.
Background
Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kuznetsov was born on December 2, 1850 in a small Stepanovka village, Odessa province, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). He was the eldest of two sons of Dmitriy Mikhailovich Kuznetsov, a military man and a big landowner in Kherson Governorate. Three brothers of Dmitriy Mikhailovich were military men.
In his childhood, Nikolai liked to hunt.
Education
Nikolai Kuznetsov began his education at the Odessa gymnasium. The boy had no interest in training, but revealed his talent in painting. The first who noticed Kuznetsov’s painting abilities was his mother, Clavdia Gavrilovna Kuznetsova. So, he left school at the 7th form and was sent by his mother to the most famous painting instructor by the time, Friedrich Malman, the future director of the Grekov Odessa Art school.
Kuznetsov pursued his artistic training at the Imperial Academy of Arts which he entered in 1876. He had been an irregular student for four years under the tutelage of Pavel Chistyakov, and often left the institution to paint at his family estate in Stepanovka. However, Nikolai received three silver medals while studying.
Nikolai Kuznetsov moved to his native Shepetovka in 1879 where he continued to produce his works which were subjects of many exhibitions in Russia and Ukraine. Then, the artist travelled through Germany and France and joined the Abramtsevo Colony, one of the centers of artistic activity by the time, gathering such famous painters as Vasily Polenov, Viktor Vasnetsov, Valentin Serov and Ilya Repin with which Kuznetsov got acquainted.
Since 1881 Nikolai Kuznetsov started to present his artworks at the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions, or Peredvizhniki, and two years later, he became its member. Later, in 1887, Kuznetsov was a co-founder and an active participant of the Society of South Russian Painters as well as of many international exhibitions.
As a result of an accident in 1889 Kuznetsov had a strain and was obliged to work and walk since then on crutches. The studio in his estate in Shepetovka became a place where come different notable artists of the time, for example, Fyodor Chaliapin. There, in the studio, Nikolai Kuznetsov created many portraits of these personalities, among which were Peter Tchaikovsky and Élie Metchnikoff. The artist himself served as a model for other painters due to his large physique.
Thereafter, the painter relocated his studio to Odessa, and started his teaching activity occupying in 1895 the professor’s post at the Imperial Academy of Arts where he had taught the battle painting for two years.
The year of 1900 was rich on events in Kuznetsov’s career. So, the painter presented his works at the Exposition Universelle in Paris as well as at the many others exhibitions throughout the Europe. The artist also opened the Art gallery in Odessa the Art gallery where he presented the huge collection of West European and Russian art which gathered during his multiple trips abroad. So, there were shown the artworks of such painters, as Ilya Repin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Valentin Serov, Ivan Pokhitonov, Alexander Mann, Charles Cottet, Gaston La Touche, and others.
In twelve years, Nikolai Kuznetsov left Odessa to join his children in Kingdom of Yugoslavia where he spent the rest of his life (now the territory of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Republic of Macedonia). Kuznetsov was named a painter of the King Aleksander in Belgrade where he taught the painting to his wife Maria. The painter done many portrait commissions, the results of which were exhibited at the personal exhibition in Vršac (1923), the exhibition of Russian Painting and Sculpture in Brooklyn museum (1923), Paris Autumn Salon (1925), and at the exhibition of Society of Russian Painters (1928).
Portrait of Maria Nikolaevna Kuznetsova - the artist's daughter
Portrait of Konstantin Andreevich Pyatnitsky, director of Rishelievskaya and II men's gymnasium
On leave
Arbiter of Peace
Portrait of the artist Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov
Portrait of the artist Efim Volkov
Portrait of the artist Albert Benois
Portrait of Artist Ivan Pokhitonov
Portrait of the wife of aviator S. Utochkin
Portrait of the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Portrait of L. Rukavishnikova
In celebration
Etude of the male head
Portrait of the collector Alexander Petrovich Russov
Portrait of the artist Apolinary Mikhailovich Vasnetsov
Portrait of a young girl
Harvester
Portrait of Lieutenant-General Andrei Alexandrovich Nilus
The girl in red
Portrait of Rakhily Semenovna Isakovich
Checking properties
After the Lunch
The housekeeper
Herd of pigs
Sleeping girl
The portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin
Membership
Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions
,
Russian Federation
1883
Society of South Russian Painters
,
Russian Federation
1887
Abramtsevo Colony
,
Russian Federation
Imperial Academy of Arts
,
Russian Federation
1895
Imperial Academy of Arts
,
Russian Federation
1900
Falanga Art Union
,
Germany
Society of Independent Artists
,
Ukraine
Kostandi Society of Artists
,
Ukraine
Interests
painting collecting
Connections
Nikolai Kuznetsov fell in love with an employee, Anna Procenko, who came to work in his father’s estate. Before their official marriage on February 5, 1888, the couple had two children. Their names were Maria, born in 1880, and Mikhail, born in 1881. The second Kuznetsov’s daughter, Lyudmila, was born ten years later.
The first-born of Nikolai Kuznetsov, Maria Nikolaevna Kuznetsova, became a prominent opera singer.