Yaroslav Nikolaev. The Leningrad Sphinx

About exhibition

Yaroslav Nikolaev (1899–1978) — a legend of the Leningrad school of painting, a well-known and recognized master, a painter whose works are held in the country's leading museums. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1956), People's Artist of the RSFSR (1975). It is commonly said that time puts everything in its place, and contemporary viewers see the works of many Soviet artists in a new light. Yaroslav Nikolaev's work evokes strong emotions, moves and does not leave one indifferent. He himself appears as the mysterious "Leningrad sphinx." According to relatives' recollections, Yaroslav Sergeyevich never let a pencil out of his hands. Life around him nourished his imagination, and his powers of observation and sensitivity to detail fed his mind. Notebooks, albums, and sheets of paper preserve the artist's ideas. Sketches, studies, and drafts become a "travel diary" where events are not written down but sketched. This exhibition was largely formed from the personal archive, the artist's "notebooks." Hidden in them is the mystery of creativity that cannot be solved. One can only sincerely marvel "from what trash poems grow, unknowing of shame." How the image seen and sketched in a notebook, once captured, acquires its flesh as it is born on the canvas.