The scandalous story of the painting, because of which the artist Pimonenko was suing the vodka manufacturer Shustov

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The name of the famous Ukrainian artist Nikolay Pimonenko nowadays forgotten by the general public. Now, not many people remember his famous comic and sentimental lyrical stories from the life of the pre-revolutionary Ukrainian village, published on the pages of magazines, calendars, postcards in the Soviet era. And there was a time when the mass replication of the painter's works brought the artist worldwide fame … and scandalous, too.

Private bussiness

In March 1862, on the outskirts of Kiev, the future artist was born into the family of a woodcarver and owner of an icon-painting workshop, Korneliy Danilovich. From the age of 12, the father introduced the boy to his craft. They traveled with their son to rural churches, which were painted by his father. And Nikolai rubbed the paints and primed the boards. Soon, the teenager himself began to draw landscape and portrait sketches. The trained eye of the father saw an artistic gift in his son, so at the first opportunity he gave the young talent to the icon-painting school at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

There he was noticed by Nikolai Ivanovich Murashko, the director of the Kiev drawing school. It is with his light hand that Nikolai Pimonenko will be admitted to this educational institution, moreover, on a free basis. And later, the works sent by the young artist to the St. Petersburg Academy for the competition will be highly appreciated by the selection committee.

The father, seeing off his son, will say in parting words: And so it happened. Two years later, in 1984, Nikolai fell ill with a severe form of tuberculosis, and the disease forced him to return home, where the climate was more favorable.

In 1891 he was awarded the title of Honorary Free Artist of the Academy of Arts for the paintings "Wedding in the Kiev Province" and "The Morning of Christ's Resurrection".

In Kiev, Pimonenko taught at a drawing school, participated in the organization of an art school. Having married, he had three children in marriage.

Nikolay Pimonenko took part in international exhibitions in Berlin, Paris, London and Munich, was an honorary member of several foreign societies and academies. In 1909 he was awarded the gold medal of the Salon de Paris of the Society of French Artists for the painting "Hopak". This one of the canvases, vividly depicting the everyday life and holidays of Ukrainian villagers before the revolution, was a great success among French audiences and was acquired by the Louvre Museum.

The artist also worked on illustrations for the poems of Taras Shevchenko, designed the opera Natalka Poltavka by Nikolai Lysenko.

At the turn of the 19th century, with the assistance of Ilya Repin, he became a member of the Society of Itinerant Artists and was appointed a teacher of graphics at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. In 1904 he reached the rank of academician and the rank of state councilor, which in the army corresponded to the rank of general.

In the spring of 1912, at the age of 50, Nikolai Pimonenko passed away. He was buried in Kiev at the Lukyanovskoye cemetery.

In 1913, a year after his death, an exhibition was organized at the Academy of Arts of St. Petersburg, where 184 paintings, 419 sketches and 112 pencil drawings by Nikolai Pimonenko were presented. In total, he created over 700 paintings and graphic compositions.

The story of how the artist's painting became the subject of a court case

The popularity of the artist's work was great in pre-revolutionary Russia. Postcards with reproductions of paintings reflecting the original life of the Ukrainian village were sold in huge numbers.

Uncomplicated, sentimental and comic scenes from the life of common people enjoyed particular attention. It was one of these works that received scandalous fame and almost cost the artist a membership in the Association of the Itinerants.

It was a painting "Home", or rather a reproduction of it, by chance and without the knowledge of the artist, which got on the labels of vodka products of the "Shustov and Sons" trademark.

And it was like this. The ill-fated postcard somehow came to the attention of the Moscow vodka manufacturer Nikolai Shustov, who was just puzzled by the design of the label for the bottles of the new Spotykach vodka. An entertaining scene, where a bitter drunkard barely walks to his house, and there his wife is already waiting with a stick and a dog sitting on the blockade prompted Shustov to solve the problem. And he, without hesitation, used this plot for a new label.

And Nikolai Pimonenko will soon receive an impartial letter from Moscow from fellow artists from the Society of the Itinerants: - wrote the "Itinerants".

And it should be noted that Nikolai Shustov was already a well-known Russian entrepreneur at that time, the owner of the largest alcoholic beverage company in tsarist Russia at the end of the 19th century, and was also known for an original and very aggressive advertising campaign that allowed him to quickly stand out from the general mass of such the same entrepreneurs.

Having received a letter of accusation, Nikolai Pymonenko immediately set off from Kiev to Moscow. At the meeting, the enterprising Shustov swore: he had never seen a picture "Home" in his eyes, he had never heard of the artist Pimonenko, since he had never been to exhibitions since he was born. He just simply liked the postcard: there are a lot of them in all the bookstores. Well, if the author himself showed up, then he is ready to pay as much as necessary. However, Pimonenko did not take the money, but filed a complaint against the manufacturer in court, which delivered a verdict - Shustov must cover the costs of the case, destroy the label and withdraw all Spotykach bottles from sale in stores.

The artistic heritage of the original Ukrainian artist

The best works of the master reflect an excellent knowledge of the life of his people, a genuine love for his heroes and, at the same time, an undoubted pictorial skill.

In recent decades, paintings by Nikolai Pimonenko began to appear at world auction sales. So in 2006, the "personal sales record of the artist Pimonenko" was set. The canvas "The Saleswoman of the Canvas" (1901) was sold at an art auction for 160 thousand US dollars.

A famous artist from the Makovsky dynasty wrote his works about the life of the Russian people without embellishment - Vladimir Makovsky.