Nikolai Vasilievich Kharitonov ( ХАРИТОНОВ Николай Васильевич ) | Russian Artist

Nikolai Vasilievich Kharitonov

Nikolai Vasilievich Kharitonov (October 27, 1880, village Plishkino, Mologsky district, Yaroslavl province - September 30, 1944, New York) 

After graduating from a rural school, Kharitonov came to St. Petersburg at the age of 12 and took a job in a stationery store, then in a workshop for the manufacture of signs. Around 1895 he went to Valaam, entering a monastery as a novice, where he painted icons for two years. Returning to St. Petersburg, he studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and in the workshop of L.E. Dmitriev-Caucasian. In 1901 he entered the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts as a volunteer, where he studied in the studio of I.E. Repin from 1902. In 1909 he received the title of artist for the painting "Icarus" (whereabouts unknown).

In 1912 he traveled to Europe, worked for a long time in Paris. In the First World War he was mobilized and, by order of the Trophy Commission, painted pencil portraits of generals of the Russian army. He did not break ties with his homeland, being a member of the Yaroslavl Art Society. He was also a member of the Petersburg associations: Society. AI Kuindzhi, Community of Artists (elected treasurer since 1910). Participated in exhibitions: Spring in the halls of the Academy of Arts (1907, 1911−1917), the St. Petersburg Society of Artists (1912), the Association of Artists (St. Petersburg, 1914−1915), the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (St. Petersburg, M., 1916) , Society them. AI Kuindzhi (Pg., 1917), the First State Free Works of Arts (Pg., 1919), an art exhibition "Lotus" (Rostov-on-Don, 1919).

Received awards: them. A. Kuindzhi for the paintings "Nanny" (1910, Dnepropetrovsk Art Museum) and "Lady in Black" (1913, acquired by the Leipzig Museum at the International Exhibition in Munich), the First Society for the Encouragement of Arts in Household Painting for the painting "On the Swing" ( 1911, whereabouts unknown) and the jubilee princess Eugenia Maksimilyanovna for the painting "A Holiday in the Country" (1914, whereabouts unknown).

In the 1920s he settled in New York and became an American citizen. In museums in Russia, Kharitonov's works are little represented (for example, in the State Russian Museum - "View of the town on the Caucasian front", 1916, in YAHM - "Still life. Church utensils", 1910s) and the modern viewer is almost unknown, except for "Portrait F. I. Shalyapin as Boris Godunov "(1916, Central Theater Museum named after A. A. Bakhrushin).