The American period of Nikolai Feshin's creativity: From the "nude" genre to portraits, still lifes, landscapes (Part 2)

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

Oddly enough, but the name of the genius Russian-American artist Nikolai Ivanovich Feshin for many years it was not particularly known either in Russia or in America, the reason for which was the banal ignorance of his work. And only in the last two decades this name was revived with triumph, and the cost of his works on the world art market reaches tens of millions of dollars.

It just so happened that both in Russia and in the United States, the painter had to live in the provinces, which was partly the reason for the low popularity of the artist's work. The dominant reason for the oblivion of the talented master under Soviet rule was his emigration to America, which became decisive in ignoring the name of Nikolai Feshin in his historical homeland almost until the "Khrushchev thaw" of the 50-60s.

And American art researchers in the first half of the twentieth century, first of all, were more supportive of the study of the avant-garde and modernism, and Feshin was an adherent of realistic traditions, impressionism and expressionism in art and therefore was highly appreciated during his lifetime only in narrow circles of large collectors of the world.

Nikolai Ivanovich, as a rule, is called "an artist of two continents", and also a "Russian American". His impressive artistic legacy consists of more than 2000 paintings, which are divided between two continents. And there are also many works of the master, kept in private collections of collectors around the world.

In Russia, his canvases are adornments of the State Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, but the largest part is kept in the Kazan Art Museum. Canvases created in America are concentrated not only in the collections of more than thirty museums, but also in private collections of collectors.

In 1923, having emigrated with his family to the United States, Feshin in 1931 received American citizenship. During these years, he works very hard and fruitfully in his unique manner, constantly exhibits his work and successfully sells.

Those who were fortunate enough to see his paintings with their own eyes sincerely believed that the author writes them easily and naturally. And Feshin noted:

Portraits of famous people created in the USA

In 1933, Feshin divorced his wife Alexandra, who was carried away by the poet and publisher Spud Johnson. The daughter of Iya, who remained with her father, throughout her life will be a faithful helper and guardian of her father's legacy.

In those years, she and her daughter moved from New York to Los Angeles, where for twenty years the painter exhibited at the Stendahl Galleries. But the serious illness of Nikolai Feshin, and he suffered from tuberculosis, forced the master to look for a new place to live with a milder climate. And so he settled in Taos, New Mexico, home to many American artists.

He also built his house there, combining Mexican and Russian traditions in culture. All the interior decoration, especially related to wood, and these are more than fifty carved doors, stairs, many objects, the artist performed with his own hands - the experience gained in childhood in his father's workshop was useful.

This house, built by the great master, is a unique monument of Russian culture in Taos. According to art critic M. Nashchokina:

Portraits of African Americans, Mexicans and Indigenous Americans

Throughout his creative life in America, Feshin drew inspiration for his painting from Taoist motives of nature and from people living in this amazing land.

Landscapes of Taos

Amazing still lifes by Nikolai Feshin

Fascinating female bodies in the "nude" genre, created in pre-revolutionary Russia and later

Feshin's inimitable canvases of a nude female nature, attracting with the skill of execution, extraordinary color and composition, of those times when, while still a teacher at the Kazan School, the master wrote hard from life. He also turned to this genre later, already living in America.

In Russia, the life of this amazing American master with Russian roots and the great Russian school of painting became known only in the last twenty years. This was truly the "second discovery" of an artist lost in time.

Drawing a line under his life in a foreign land, Nikolai Ivanovich somehow admitted with melancholy:

From the daughter's memories:

The artist's heart stopped beating in his sleep on October 5, 1955. And fulfilling the will of her father, Iya Feshina handed over to her homeland a whole collection of the master's canvases and reburied his ashes in Kazan in 1976, where they treated the works of the genius fellow countryman with deep respect and interest. The Museum of Fine Arts of Tatarstan in Kazan has opened a permanent exhibition of Nikolai Feshin's creations.

And finally, I would like to note that since the 2000s, the genius's canvases in art markets and world auctions have been estimated at fabulous sums. So, for example, the painting "Little Cowboy" was sold in 2010 for $ 10.8 million. And more recently, in October 2017, "Portrait of Nadezhda Sapozhnikova" was estimated at 1, 2-1, 8, and sold for 6, £ 95 million.

The painting "Nude" was sold for 1.3 million pounds. And that's not counting the works that went under the hammer, a little short of a million.

You can read about the amazing fate and trials that befell the artist at home in the first half of his life and about the Russian period of the genius's work. in the first part of the review.