Yaroshenko Nikolay Alexandrovich

Famous Russian artist of the second half of the 19th century, an outstanding portrait painter, author of genre paintings, student of I. N. Kramskoy and his faithful colleague in the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. He received his initial artistic education at the Petrovsky Cadet Corps under I.K. Zaitsev. In the early 1860s, he took private lessons in painting and drawing from A. M. Volkov. From 1874 he was the organizer of the so-called “Yaroshenko Saturdays” on Sergievskaya Street in St. Petersburg, which were popular among the democratic intelligentsia. He visited Ukraine and the Caucasus several times and toured the Urals. In 1895–1896 he traveled through Italy and the Middle East. In 1885 he purchased an estate in Kislovodsk and lived there in the summer and autumn. Since 1875 - a member and permanent exhibitor of the TPHV, and since 1879 - a member of the board of the Partnership. He also exhibited his works at the All-Russian Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod (1896), international art exhibitions in Copenhagen and Munich (both 1897). In 1898 in St. Petersburg and 1899 in Moscow, memorial exhibitions of the artist were held. Yaroshenko is the largest master of genre painting in Russia in the second half of the 19th century, one of the ideologists and active participants of the TPHV. His work is characterized by a critical orientation, democracy, and the desire to talk about the advanced social and ethical ideals of his era. In his paintings he created collective images of workers, students, and revolutionary intelligentsia; he was the first among Russian painters to turn to factory themes (“Stoker”, 1878). He worked a lot in the portrait genre, creating a whole gallery of images of representatives of Russian culture.