Nikolay
Nikolaevich Kupreyanov

1894 Born in Wloclawek, Poland now.

1901 Move to St. Petersburg.

1912 Graduated from the school workshop of M. Tenisheva.

1912-1914 Classes in the private Studio of Dmitry Kardovsky, then E. Zvantseva arts.

1915 playing a xylograph under the leadership of A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva.

1915-1916 Classes in the private Studio of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

1915-1923 Works in woodcuts.

1918-1920 Teaches at the Higher Institute of photography and phototechnique in Petrograd.

1920 began work in lithography. Played the posters for the Kostroma branch GROWTH.

1922 he moved to Moscow. Collaborated in the magazine "Bezbozhnik", "Crocodile", "pioneer" as a cartoonist.

1922-1930 Teacher at the VKhUTEMAS.

1925 a Diploma of the 1st degree and the gold medal at the International exhibition of fine and decorative arts in Paris.

1926-1928 member of the OST.

The 1920s tour of Italy, through the ancient cities of Germany; architectural sketches.

1930-1933 Lecturer at the Moscow polygraphic Institute.

1930s Takes portraits, still lifes, and landscapes in various techniques; illustrates the works of Russian classics, books for children; creates a series of watercolors dedicated to the ships of the Baltic sea.

1933 Died in an accident.

Studied at A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva (1912-1917), in the workshops of D. N. Kardovsky (1912-1914) and K. S. Petrov-Vodkin (1914-1916). Member of the society "Four arts" and the OST. Collaborated in the magazines "Bezbozhnik", "Crocodile", "pioneer". Taught at the Higher Institute of photography and photographic equipment (early 1920s), Moscow higher art - Vhuteine (1922-1930) and the Moscow polygraphic Institute (1930 - 1933). Professor. Among his pupils - M. V. Kupriyanov, N. A. Sokolov, A. M. Laptev. The author of the book: the Diaries of the artist. M.-L., 1937.

The career of Nicholas of kupreyanov was brief and yet extremely full. Artistic maturity the artist has achieved in the early 1920s, and in 1933 - died, swimming in a small river Uche. During this decade, almost feverish tireless work he grew up in great graphics, becoming one of the leading masters of the Moscow picture of the 1920-ies.

In this era formed a kind of direction of the Moscow full-scale drawing. The fact that at the beginning of the decade he moved to Moscow Petrograd some of the largest draughtsmen. It was, first of all, Miturich and Bruni - masters from Petrograd of a new generation of artists who entered the music arena just before the great October socialist revolution. Just before they moved and Kupreyanov. He graduated from the Petrograd Tenishev art school, worked in private studios V. Kardovsky and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, a few months he studied the woodcuts of A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, and in 1922 settled in Moscow, where he began teaching at VKhUTEMAS. Soon after moving to the artist doing his famous engraving of "the Cruiser "Aurora" ("Aurora" on the Neva river on the night of 25 October 1917)" (1922), and later joined painter-cartoonist in the magazines "Crocodile" and "Atheist", going further to easel painting drawing series "Plant" and "Transport" (1925-1927), "Railway road" (1925-1927), "the Baltic fleet" (1932).

The peculiarity of the Moscow period of kupreyanov's works, as, indeed, Miturich and Bruni, to develop it simultaneously with the production and so-called home theme. It was a relaxed nature sketches from the ambient: kazhdodnevno at the family table, household, reading lamp, kids, summer life in the country or in a provincial town, in the shapes of animals or landscape not far from home. As in the poetry of Boris Pasternak 1920-ies, the world seemed to be poetically inspired, for it seemed and parcel of the broader and no less spiritualized world of nature and life in General. Curled up near wheel of a cart dog from Bruni or lapped from a saucer have a cat of kupreyanov could cause the tides really excited. And especially immersed in this everyday environment was the perception of kupreyanov, widely reflected in his famous "selischenskiy" series - "the Flock" "Evening in the Village" and others. Contemporary artist criticism was inclined to see in the coexistence of these two different thematic areas - public-production and home - known controversy of his art. In fact, it was just different poles in its holistic perception of the world. In the "home" themes of the 1920-ies was missing anything especially appliances that can "isolate" from the outside world. Artists are not "locked" in this home, but felt it as a personal microcosm, essentially open to the public macrocosm. And again, just more connected like poles just of kupreyanov. After all, the openly lyrical and winningly direct the tone of his formal interiors as if it was directly transferred to his equally lyrical winter landscapes or landscapes with herds, hence the spread in travel sketches during his numerous journeys, animating, for example, pages from his "Diary of the artist".

All these figures are dominated by a sense of peace and light. Smooth dark kupriyanovka interior will not be anything disturbing and gloomy. It is perhaps only strengthens the impression of light, focused on family and coming from the radiant light of the lamp. This lamp is one of the keynotes already in his earlier works. In the still life "In the kitchen" (1920) have all dominated the glass tube, around which were spread wide circular glow. Lamp and table - a sort of altar home of harmony and peace, inexhaustible source of kupreyanov to poetizatsii everyday. Drawings from the series "evenings in the Village" (1927-1928) inherent in a more generalized, almost a symbolic representation of light. Light conveys the atmosphere of the intimate human connection: when evening in the room playing the piano, on the side turned to the viewer, assumed to be listeners; to the table, which read E. N. Tigranova and the artist's daughter Vera, you can come in and sit down without disturbing their occupations. The artist merged with that the family circle that no longer separates itself from him, feeling it as an expression of their own spiritual spheres. When the Kupreyanov was off somewhere in his imagination he lived this way of spiritual introspection. To return to his meant to return to their most serious work and thoughts, or, otherwise, to the table with a lit lamp! In the figure "On the stairs" (1928) the beacon the home of the world represents the figure of a woman with raised lamp in hand, welcoming the "belated traveller" on the threshold, in the doorway. From "Selischenskiy evenings" impressions spiritualized light or penetrating to the depths of the motif of the intimate presence of the artist, like ripples, spread to other subjects. Since 1925, all of the many landscapes filled with the specific light, often fluorescent, or Sunny. This light penetrates the space of the landscape, however, encompasses a generalized property - value emotional leitmotif. Expressive is a light shining in such sketches as "a Coffee shop on the beach" (1925) from Sudak series of kupreyanov. Her mood close to the atmosphere of stories by A. grin with their seaside ports and beaches, dissolved in the solar distances: from the figures of the sailors, chatting at the coffee shop, the eye moves to far the boat seems to be floating in space without horizon, and around - everything was the same light shining, alluring in the vast expanse. And those same intimate "Evening in Village" has spread to many kupriyanovskaya the motives of the atmosphere of direct entry of the artist in the depicted reality. Mepa intimacy, of course, weak when close selischenskiy landscapes with herds the master moved on to the "Railroad tracks" or "Baltic fleet", however, remained everywhere a keen sense of the presence of the author reporting the best leaves some special emotional openness.

In selischenskiy "Herds" or "Railroad tracks" is "presence" could be implemented as direct entry draftsman depicts the landscape space. In the interpretation of this space in the leaves on a rustic theme, the artist has made considerable development. From the drawings "Winter (Tea)" or "Red horse" (both - 1924), more like "composed" of individual motives and not Emphasizing a single space, evolution was figure 1926-1929 years, where the spatial depth was realized quite clearly and integrally. In one of the classic figures from the series "the Herds", "Herd going over the bridge" (1927) - with striking clarity shows how the herd is on the opposite Bank of the river, it hesitated on the bridge, and as approaching to the viewer and increasing size of cows crane their necks, shake their tails and move my feet. The artist settled with his album on a small hill in the path of the herd, and the cows turn to the side, spreading on the middle shore.

However, even more pronounced "presence" of the artist in the correspondence of the motion of the hand and wrist movement of cows or the whole herd. Wife Of Kupreyanov N. ISNAR very true wrote about manifested in kupriyanovka outline the exact feeling on how the line captures everything that the artist "saw". She calls this connectedness of motive and the line "condition" of a drawing or painting, without which, in her opinion, it is obvious the appearance of the image. As soon as the Kupreyanov "accidentally loses condition, pririsovyvaet what he knows, for example, that cows have horns, but the horns, the picture has not yet reached, he casts a figure and starts a new one, in which the lowing cow, going ahead, the movement of the horns expresses his desire to come." And that's exactly what the organic development of the figure expresses the movement of not only the animal but the whole herd. Cow's back or neck elongated like continue one another. The viewer feels and the "interrelatedness of cows walking on the ground. Often this land is in one spot or line where something planned, and expressed many of the backs of the cows from this herd flows just like a river in its banks." Kupriyanovskaya line "flow" in cases when the motif itself, there is no motion. Then they reveal the rhythmic structure of the motif, sometimes calm, sometimes upbeat. In the sheet "Night. Horse" (1927), the line merged with the simplest shapes of grazing horses, their dark reflections in the surface of the sleeping river, frozen in the silence of the bright Northern night. In "Train tracks" line glide rapidly and together. The kupreyanov and here draws from a high point, and the runaway rails, gradually expanding and rounding off, and she rolled to the side. In this figure, the brush is clearly moving from the foreground into the distance, and then the imagination takes where name is the ringing of the engine and where are you running to the iron thread of the rails.

Finally, another way to be "present" in the emotional atmosphere of the picture - in numerous open letters from a journey to the Caspian sea and the outline of the "artist's Diary". Runaway very first sketches live there in direct connection with the text. Essentially, postcards and sketches from the "Diary" could be attributed in the broadest sense of the word to the illustration, so close to them - and graphically and content - communication that Kupreyanov I wrote and what he painted. In the early 1930-ies master with great enthusiasm joined in only unfolding more then visit artists around the country. By remark A. Efros, Kupreyanov ""boiled over" trips, participated in the "Teams", and these words filled his assiduity and fervor... a Huge, intense labor of the Soviet life through the artist, fills it, lifts and deposits the magnificent works of art." On page kupriyanovka sketches gushing now brand new stories, is not accustomed to close, as in "Herds", but strange and exotic. The artist makes several trips to the coast of the Azov and Caspian seas, and the names of Caucasian settlements in the Gunib or the Bank that flashed on his cards and letters, they sound like fantastic Fox or Zurbagan from the novels of the same green. The artist draws, dragged to the Bank of Serug and sturgeon, figures of half-naked Georgians and Persians - workers on a fishing lands; his open letters alternate boats to haul fish, and stage of loading of coal to foreign steamships. That it is impossible to capture in the sketch he jotted words: "silver with green backs of the fish. Everything else is grey", and "make the composition of the silver-blue". But basically he explained the figures: "Dining room. The queue for morning tea" - recorded in "the Diary", 1930, between the lines increase figure working with the hook-nosed profile in national costumes. And that one with the text, too, kept feeling neposredstvennaya emotional involvement of the artist in all that he saw and sketched. His words in the diaries and letters efficient and quick and yet filled with maximum transparency and credibility of the source. And his words and drawings - live speech addressed to friends or relatives that never breaks. "Virusa, here barges in the port of Berdyansk," he writes in a letter from Berdyansk to 1931, and then shows how this looks like a boat with its rigging, masts and snakes reflection in the still water. "Dear Paul Davidovich, this is the fourth card", - he addresses to his friend P. Oettinger from the Bank, and next throws the figure of Oriental women in a wide blanket with the kids on the hands and feet. Ekzoticheskij the coexists with the intimacy of intonation! Line kupriyanovka letters to his family - a kind of wire, on which his sketches, made in the South seas, was transferred home, where these reports waited. And they got on the same lit table where his letters were read to friends, and diaries he had subsequently to decipher it myself.

So closed circles kupriyanovskaya art. Shining the light of Azov shipyards seemed to merge with the light of the home lamp. A kaleidoscopic variety of landscapes and scenes he transformed the feeling of the spirit of one world, and all the distant and originally someone else was lyrically experiences. To 1930-m to years of Soviet drawing, but other types of art was captured by processes of integration. The foundations of the unity of the Soviet artistic culture, in which it was melted inherited from the pre-revolutionary years of tradition and direction. Towards direct participation in the formation of life was moving and Leningrad and Moscow painters and the Kupreyanov was this way, perhaps ahead of others.

( article by G. Pospelov)