N.A. Yaroshenko:
all facets of talent

On June 26, the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts (104 Lenin St., annex) will host the grand opening of the exhibition "N. A. Yaroshenko: All Facets of Talent." It marks the 180th anniversary of the artist’s birth.

The exhibition will immerse visitors in the creative world of this outstanding artist. It will feature works from the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Vasily Polenov Historical, Artistic, and Natural History Museum-Reserve, and the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts.

The exhibition will center on portraits, including those of Yaroshenko’s family and friends, as well as people he never knew. The artist masterfully conveyed the character and mood of each subject through composition, color, and detail.

Viewers will also see mountain landscapes that Yaroshenko painted during his travels in the Caucasus. Each landscape has its own unique mood, which the artist masterfully conveyed through color.

It’s important to note that a special place in the exhibition will be given to works that explore social themes. Yaroshenko was a true master of socially charged painting; his works vividly depict the difficult living conditions of ordinary people, the fates of workers and prisoners, and also portray the progressive youth of the era.

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Yaroshenko (1846–1898) was a nobleman by birth, an artilleryman and military engineer by profession, and an artist by vocation. His life was divided between service and creativity; he rose to the rank of major general and simultaneously became one of the outstanding artists of the Peredvizhniki (Wanderers). As an artist, N. A. Yaroshenko excelled in various genres: he was a master of socially charged thematic painting, a portraitist and psychologist, a landscape painter, and a still life artist.

N. A. Yaroshenko was born on December 1, 1846, in Poltava to a military family. Despite the boy’s early talent for drawing, his father assigned him to the Poltava Cadet Corps. After graduating in 1863, Nikolai Yaroshenko was sent to St. Petersburg, where he continued his education at military academies. Beginning in 1867, N. A. Yaroshenko studied at the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Academy, graduating with honors and being sent to the St. Petersburg Cartridge Factory, where he served for over twenty years, retiring in 1892 with the rank of major general.

While studying in St. Petersburg, the young cadet Nikolai Yaroshenko had the opportunity to take private lessons in fine art: he studied in the studio of the renowned genre painter A. M. Volkov and attended evening classes at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, studying under I. N. Kramskoy. From 1867 to 1874, he was an auditor at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Thanks to his determination and hard work, N. A. Yaroshenko managed to simultaneously obtain a military and artistic education.

During his years of painting studies, N. A. Yaroshenko became acquainted with the Itinerant artists. In 1878, he made his debut at the IV Itinerant Exhibition of the Society of Traveling Art Exhibitions (TPHV). In 1878, he joined the Society and was immediately elected to the board. From the very beginning of his work with the TPHV, Yaroshenko took an active role, co-directing the creative activities of the association with I. N. Kramskoy. After Kramskoy’s death in 1887, N. A. Yaroshenko became his ideological successor and headed the Society. Contemporaries called N. A. Yaroshenko his "conscience."

After retiring in 1892, N. A. Yaroshenko, due to poor health, lived and worked almost exclusively in Kislovodsk, where he acquired the "White Villa" estate in 1885. His home there became a popular gathering place for friends. On June 25, 1898, N. A. Yaroshenko died suddenly of a heart attack while working on a painting. The artist was buried in Kislovodsk. In 1962, the N. A. Yaroshenko State Memorial Museum-Estate was opened in his "White Villa" estate.