Sold at Auction: Nikolai Timkov

Nikolai Efimovich Timkov (August 12, 1912, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Empire – December 25, 1993, Saint Petersburg, Russia) was a Soviet Russian painter, Honored Artist of Russian Federation, and a member of the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists (before 1992 the Leningrad branch of Union of Artists of Russian Federation).[1] He lived and worked in Leningrad and is regarded as one of the leading representatives of the Leningrad School of Painting,[2] worldwide known for his landscape paintings.

Nikolai Efimovich Timkov was born August 12, 1912, at a settlement of Nakhichevanskaya Dacha close to Rostov-on-Don, Russian Empire. His parents, Efim Yegorovich Timkov and Vasilisa Timofeevna Ablyazova were peasants from the Saratov province. In 1892, they moved to Rostov-on-Don. A father worked as a general worker. The family had four older children. Parents died in 1924, when Nikolai was twelve years old. Care of him took the older sisters.

In 1927, Nikolai Timkov finished 8 grades of secondary school and enrolled in the Rostov Art College, which was headed by A. Chinenov, who was landscape painter, a pupil of Vasily Polenov and a big fan of Isaac Levitan.[3]

In 1930, Timkov graduated from Art College. In 1931, he went to Moscow, where he met with Pavel Radimov and other Moscow artists of AKhR Association (Association of Artists of the Revolution).

Timkov worked in "Izogiz" edition as a general worker, then enrolled at the Association "Vsekohudozhnik" as an artist-designer. At the same time he taught himself at the Tretyakov Gallery and did much plein air painting, occasionally heeding the benevolent advice of Mikhail Nesterov and Sergey Malyutin. At Radimov's apartment he met Isaak Brodsky, who played a big role in the fate of the artist. After seeing his work, Brodsky advised Nikolai Timkov to go to Leningrad to continue his art education.

In 1933 Nikolai Timkov together with Alexander Laktionov arrived in Leningrad and entered the painting department of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of the All-Russian Academy of Arts. He studied with Mikhail Bernshtein, Arcady Rylov, Alexander Lubimov, and Vladimir Serov. In 1939 Nikolai Timkov graduated from the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Isaak Brodsky workshop with the rank of artist of painting. His degree work was a painting titled The Day off in suburb.[4] In one year with Timkov Institute graduates Piotr Belousov, Mikhail Kozell, Lev Orekhov, Aleksei Gritsai, Elena Skuin, Gleb Verner, Lia Ostrova, Boris Sherbakov, and other young artists who later became famous Soviet painters and art educators.

After graduation, Nikolai Timkov was called up for military service in the Baltic Fleet, where he served until 1946. During the Great Patriotic War and Blockade of Leningrad Timkov was among defenders of Leningrad. During brief visits to the city, he created a series of graphic works (gouache, watercolor), depicting the Siege of Leningrad (now in the collection of the State Russian Museum and the Museum of the History of Saint Petersburg). Timkov participated in the Exhibition of the defenders of Leningrad, also in the Exhibition titled "The Heroics of Soviet Front and Rear" in Moscow at the Tretyakov Gallery in 1943, as well as creating the greatest during the war years Exhibition "The Heroic defense of Leningrad", opened in 1944 and marked the beginning of the Museum of Defense of Leningrad. Timkov was awarded the medals "For Defense of Leningrad", and "For Victory over Germany". In 1943, Nikolai Timkov has been accepted in members of the Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists.[5]

His first part in Art exhibition refers to 1929 (Rostov on Don). In 1947, in the halls of the Leningrad Union of Soviet Artists has been opened the first solo exhibition of his works, as shown later in Leningrad at the Cinema House and the House of Arts. He painted landscapes, genre paintings, worked in watercolors and oil painting. Most famous as master of lyrical landscapes. Since the late 1940s, Nikolai Timkov become the constant participant of Leningrad, Republican, and All-Union Art Exhibitions, including All-Union Art Exhibition of 1957 in Moscow, devoted to the 40th Anniversary of the October Revolution. Formation of his individual creative style proceeded gradually, as experience and lessons learned in the process of communicating with your colleagues and numerous creative travel to the Volga River and Don River, in Staraya Ladoga, the Urals, the work in Wira and Christmas village near Leningrad, on the Academicheskaya Dacha. Already as a mature master he visits Italy (1969), England (1974), France (1977), Yugoslavia (1981).