Stepan Dmitrievich Nefyodov-Erzia

About museum

Stepan Dmitrievich Nefyodov-Erzia was a Soviet artist and sculptor, a master of sculpture and a representative of the Art Nouveau style. Stepan Erzia was born in a Mordvin village. He studied at a parish school and then in the icon-painting workshops of the village of Alatyr. He later entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he studied under Korovin, Serov and Pasternak. In 1903 he took up sculpture, mastered the technique of direct carving in stone and adopted the pseudonym Erzia. His work "The Last Night of a Condemned Man" brought him world fame: the sculptor was called "the Russian Rodin" and "the peasant Michelangelo." After successful work in Italy and France and a return to Russia, Erzia experimented with new materials, created sculptures on mythological and national themes, and took part in Soviet monumental propaganda, but ultimately, due to a conflict with the authorities, he was forced to emigrate in 1926. The sculptor first went to Paris and from there to Argentina. During his years in Buenos Aires, Erzia learned to carve sculptures from exotic woods and produced more than 180 works. In 1950 he returned to the USSR and was given a studio in Moscow, where a permanent exhibition of his works was organized. In 1956 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. The sculptor was buried in Saransk, and his name is commemorated in the names of museums and streets in Moscow and Saransk.