top of page
from a trompe l'oeil to a historical
still life
NIKOLAI SMIRNOV
(1938 - 2005)
The unique artist, the inventor of a particular genre - “the historical still life” or as he called it "the historical theatre of objects". Graduated from Moscow State University, the History of Art faculty. Author of a number of books and articles on Russian and European art, he wrote about Boticelli, Renoir, Breugel the Eldest. Worked for almost a decade as an art researcher for the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Art and Isobrazitelnoe Iskussto (Fine Art) Publishing House. At the age of 39 he has chosen to give up his successful career in art history and become an artist.
Participated in Art Exhibitions at Malaya Gryzinskaya Art hall (1977-1985), an International Art Exhibition “Images of the Motherland” in Basel (Switzerland, 1984-1986), Russian Artists’ exhibition in Dusseldorf ( Germany, 1986), the All-Union Pushkin exhibition in the Manezh Art Hall (1987), the Exhibition of the Soviet Art in Japan (1987, where he was awarded the Great Golden medal as the best foreign artist of the year by the National Association of the artists of Japan), took part in a number of art shows in France (1987-1988). Nikolai Smirnov travelled a lot and spent five years (1992-1996) working in Bolivia where two major exhibitions of his works have been held at the National Art Museum of Bolivia in La Paz (1992, 1994). Nowadays his works are preserved in private collections in Russia, USA, Columbia, Bolivia, France and Germany.Nikolay Smirnov has been working as an artist for 25 years and created only 54 paintings but over this time he managed to gain both national and international recognition and his works soon became highly sought after by art collectors. Smirnov passed away in 2005 at the age of 67 and buried at Vagankovskoe cemetery in Moscow.
We see in front of us the man of courage, risk and luck.
the greatest risk is to became an artist at the age of 39. Smirnov has been maturing into the Artist extremely slowly but it wouldn't be possible otherwise: his art is not spontaneous, it was built on the colossal creative experience of the Past.
Alexander Yakimovich
bottom of page