Nicolai Fechin (1881-1955)

Nicolai Fechin was born in the city of Kazan, Russia, the son of Ivan Alexandrovitch Fechin, an accomplished icon maker, woodcarver, and gilder.

 At the age of thirteen Fechin was ready to begin his life's work, attending the Kazan School of Art (1895-1901) and then the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts, where he was taught by the great Russian master, Ilya Repin.

His work appeared in America for the first time at the 1910 International Exhibit of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.

In both western Europe and America, Fechin was greeted with instant acclaim.

Among such distinguished contemporaries as Claude Monet, Pissarro, Gaston La Touche, Sisley and John Sargent, he won his first prizes and medals. He was called a "Moujik in art", the "Tartar painter".

Hardships following the Bolshevik Revolution eventually led Fechin to take his wife Alexandra and daughter Eya to the United States in 1923.

The family first settled in New York but not for long. Since a child, he had loved the somber forests and peoples near the Tartar border in his homeland.

He found their equal in the high pine forests of the Colorado Plateau, the old adobe villages, and the Pueblo, Apache and Navajo tribes of the American Southwest.

In 1926 he moved his family to Taos, where a small community of artists also made their home. He purchased a house in the middle of seven acres adjoining the Indian reservation. His father's influence took over as Fechin spent the next several years handcrafting every viga, corbel, lintel and swinging door and niche for icons.

Today the home itself remains a work of architectural art and is the base for the Taos Art Museum - a non-profit cultural organization formed in 1981 to celebrate the life and creative pursuits of Nicolai Fechin and to host exhibits, concerts and make available information about this artist.

Lenin [Ленин], pseudonimo di Vladimir Il'ič Ul'janov [Владимир Ильич Ульянов] 1870-1924

Nicolai Ivanovich Fechin era un pittore Russo-Americano noto per i suoi ritratti e le opere con nativi americani , il quale, alla fine, fu conosciuto in Occidente, per via delle sue radici, come "il pittore tartaro".

Dopo essersi laureato con il massimo dei voti presso l' Accademia Imperiale delle Arti ed aver viaggiato in Europa sotto il Prix de Rome, è tornato al suo nativo Kazan, dove insegnò e dipinse.

Espone le sue prime opere negli Stati Uniti nel 1910 in una mostra internazionale a Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania.

Dopo essere emigrato con la sua famiglia a New York nel 1923 ed aver lavorato lì per alcuni anni, Fechin sviluppò la tubercolosi e si trasferì ad ovest per un clima più secco.

Lui e la sua famiglia si stabilirono a Taos, nel New Mexico, dove fu affascinato dai nativi americani e dal paesaggio.

Il suo miglior lavoro negli Stati Uniti era di questi elementi. La sua casa a Taos è elencata nel registro nazionale dei luoghi storici ed è utilizzata come Taos Art Museum.

Dopo aver lasciato Taos nel 1933, Fechin si stabilì nel sud della California.