NIKOLAI KUZNETSOV (1876 – 1970) At home

signed in Cyrillic ‘N Kuznetsov’ (lower left), signed and titled in Cyrillic (on the reverse of the stretcher), an old label in Cyrillic ‘Kurland. Moskva. Sofiyka’ affixed to the reverse of the stretcher oil on canvas 61.5 х 50.6 cm painted circa 1910 Nikolai Efimovich Kuznetsov (1876–1970) was born in Moscow. He began drawing in early childhood and, in 1896, entered the Law Faculty of Moscow University while simultaneously studying in the private studio of Konstantin Korovin and Valentin Serov, alongside fellow artists Nikolai Tarkhov, Alexander Sredin, and Vasily Denisov. He later continued his training in Paris with Henri Matisse and at the Académie Vitti. Returning to Russia in 1910, he continued to refine his craft under Korovin’s guidance. In 1911, he painted ‘At Work’, exhibited at the 41st exhibition of the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions (Peredvizhniki), where it was displayed between works by Ilya Repin and Vasily Polenov (now in the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum). He also exhibited with the Free Art Society, the Moscow Salon, and the Jack of Diamonds group. After the Revolution, Kuznetsov designed agitational displays in Moscow’s Presnensky District, decorated Theatre Square for the Congress of the Third International, contributed to the opening of the Moscow Theatre for Young Audiences (MTYuZ), led an art studio at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, and taught at the Stroganov School of Industrial Art in the late 1930s.