Nikolai Mikhailovich Zinovyev

Nikolai Mikhailovich Zinovyev was a Russian, Soviet artist, a master of Palekh lacquer miniature, monumentalist, restorer, and book illustrator. People's Artist of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor. He was born on 8 (20) May 1888 in the village of Dyagilevo (now Palekhsky District of Ivanovo Oblast). His father was an icon painter. He studied icon painting in the Belousov workshop, and from 1902 to 1906 in the training icon-painting workshop of the Committee for the Care of Russian Icon Painting.

In 1926 Zinovyev became a member of the Palekh Artel of Ancient Painting. He was among the first to turn to Soviet themes in his work. From 1928 he taught at the professional school attached to the Artel, which in 1935 was transformed into an art technical school, and in 1936 into the Palekh Art College named after A. M. Gorky. From 1944 to 1956 Zinovyev headed the State Museum of Palekh Art. The artist died on 4 June 1979 in Palekh and was buried in the cemetery of the settlement of Palekh.