Nikolenko, Nikolay Iosifovich

Nikolay Iosifovich Nikolenko , ( September 10, 1912 , village Alekseyevka of the Elizavetgrad district of the Kherson province - May 12, 1975 , Munich, Germany) - Russian painter and icon painter, illustrator

Biography

He was born on September 10, 1912 in the village of Alekseevka of the Elizavetgrad district of the Kherson province in the family of a priest. Grew in Kiev. His father died in the dungeons of Soviet punitive organs, his mother was repressed.

In 1928 he entered the art studio of Kruger-Prakhov in Kiev.

In 1930, he transferred to the Kiev Art Institute in the studio of Professor Mikhail Boychuk , an expert on Byzantine and ancient Russian art, who died in Soviet camps.

In 1932 he left Kiev and sailed as a sailor on international voyages.

In 1933 he was arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison.

In 1933-1939 was imprisoned in the camp. In 1939 he was again arrested on charges of preparing an armed uprising. Sentenced to death, with a replacement of 10 years imprisonment.

In 1940 he was released under an amnesty.

In 1941, he was drafted into the army and, as a former prisoner, sent to the penal battalion. He was wounded several times, fell into German captivity and sent to a work camp near Dresden. He worked at a factory in a work camp in Dresden until the end of the war. After the war, he escaped forced surrender in the USSR.

In 1950, with the help of the Tolstoy Foundation, he emigrated to the United States.

In 1970 he moved permanently to Germany.

He died on May 12, 1975 in Munich (Germany).

Creativity

He earned a living by illustrating books, worked as a theater artist. After the war he returned to painting, looking for recipes for paints of old masters. He taught at the Russian School of Industrial Art in Hamburg, organized by G. Ya. Kiverov and A.A. Abramov. The main focus of the school is the development of problems of stylistics and technology of Byzantine and Old Russian icon painting and frescoes. At the same time he painted icons for the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Fishback camp (Germany). In 1951, after emigrating to the United States, the first exhibition of Nikolenko was held at Fordham University. In 1956 he participated in the exhibition of Byzantine art in Washington. The author of the exhibition of documentary drawings "Kolyma". Participated in the exhibition "US Art in 1958." In 1961, Nikolenko held a personal exhibition in the Atlanta Museum, which aroused interest in the artist's work. In 1962, he completed 104 drawings for the book “Myths about Heroes” - a collection of legends of different nations in the retelling of Norma Lorry Goodrich, published by Orion Press. In 1969 he returned to the image of nature, to architectural landscapes and surrealism. He designed the books of A. Galich, A.V. Kuznetsova, J. Orwell and other authors, published in the publishing house "Posev" (Frankfurt).

“In the small salon of the artist Nikolai Iosifovich Nikolenko, many artists from abroad gathered, including Sergey Petrovich Ivanov, the grandson of Fet, an old emigrant from Paris, a friend of Alexander Benois, Serebryakova” ( Sergey Gollerbakh )

Family

Wife - Lada Rostislavovna Nikolenko (nee Voinova) (1915, Petrograd - July 5, 1996, Germany) - Doctor of Art History, Don Cossack, her godfather was Kazimir Malevich. She studied art history in the USA and in England. Author of numerous works on art and the autobiographical novel “Like Dust from the Steppe”.