Nikolai Sokolov - Soviet and Russian cartoonist, graphic artist, painter. The artist was part of the Kukryniksy group. He is an Academician of the Academy of Arts of the USSR and People's Artist of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor, Lenin, five Stalin and State Prizes of the USSR.
Each of the famous community of Kukryniksy in art had its own way. Together, under a single pseudonym, three artists came to the capital from different cities, each had their own life baggage. However, there was much that Mikhail Kupriyanov, Porfiry Krylov and Nikolai Sokolov united. And this is an obsession with art.
Choosing a creative path
In the legendary community Sokolov was assigned the letter "C". Nikolai Alexandrovich was born on July 8 (21) in 1903 in Tsaritsyn, Moscow Region. After graduating from elementary school, the boy entered the Voskresensky real school in the capital. Together with him, he studied subsequently famous Sergei Obraztsov.
After a fire in the capital in 1919, the family moved to Rybinsk. From an early age, the boy began to draw. The most memorable gift for him was a large box of colors. He enthusiastically recalled every touch with a brush.
There Nikolai got a job as a clerk at the Water Transport Department. In a new city for him, a talented young man entered the studio of the Fine Arts Studio of the Proletcult. Students painted from life, traveled to the Volga to study and conducted exhibitions. The future painter from that time was keenly interested in all social concepts.
He liked to arrange demonstrations, steamboats, clubs. He was happy to write sets for various amateur performances. Sokolov and the head of the studio did not leave without help. For him, he drew ads, flyers, posters.
In 1923, the Raykvod gave an employee a referral to study in Moscow. At the entrance tests in Vhutemas, an unfamiliar bearded man responded with approval to his examination work. It was Tabor. A talented applicant was accepted to the graphic faculty.
Since Sokolov was fond of humorous sketches, he liked cartoons and caricatures. In the days of students, interest in this area did not disappear. Not forgetting that he belonged to water managers, the young man turned to the editorial office of the newspaper "On Watch." The drawings proposed by him were approved, cartoons on current topics have regularly appeared in the publication since then.
Master handwriting
Soon Nikolai came up with the idea of cartoons on the topic of the construction of the metro that had begun. It was published in Crocodile, signed by Nika. Then the work of Kukryniksy barely arose. In a friendly teamwork, which took half a century, the work of a single artist was not leveled.
Even the earliest works of Nikolai Alexandrovich give an idea of the fidelity of the eye, the ability to capture the most typical features of the model. In this spirit, a portrait of Gorky was made in pencil. His painter did on June 6, 1928 at a meeting with rabkory. The sharp-witted head-turn, hand with a pipe, and angular shape are faithfully transmitted.
Sokolov also aptly managed to capture the most striking features of the figures of Grabar and Tabor in the forties at the presidium of the meeting. Portrait similarities are conveyed by the most avaricious means. The psychological state, tension, activity of Grabar and the concentration of calm Tabor were perfectly conveyed.
A smile is caused by a sketch of 1948 in a girl and guy serene sleeping on a bench of a local train. And the cartoons on Prokofiev and Moskvin convey all the good laughs of the author. It is not surprising that these sketches became the basis of the famous porcelain figurines created by the Kukryniksy.
Sokolov did not leave the painting. Landscapes became his work, the main place is occupied by the nature of the Volga regions, filled with the finest poetry and lyricism.
This can be seen on the canvas "Old Bridge", "Spring in Abramtsevo." With pleasure, Sokolov painted architectural landscapes. So, on his canvas, the Louvre seems to be drowning in pinkish-lilac twilight. Almost always, Nikolai Aleksandrovich introduces shores with smooth water into his work. It could be a pond in Abramtsevo, admiring its own reflections of the arcade of bridges across the Seine.
The magnificent master died on April 17, 2000.
