Lot 110

Nikolaj Michajlovič Rodionov (1896 - 1970) MADONNA

Nikolai Rodionov was born in Moscow, where he also received his first artistic education. He was mobilized during the First World War, and after the Bolshevik Revolution and at the beginning of the Civil War he joined the White Army. In 1920 he emigrated from the Crimea via Turkey to the Balkans. In Ljubljana he continued his art studies and, on the recommendation of his teacher, probably the Czech painter Kopac, moved permanently to Prague in 1925. Here he studied first at the School of Arts and Crafts, from where he transferred to the Prague Ukrainian Art Studio, founded and directed by Serhiy Mako. He exhibited with the Purkyně Artists Association and was a member of the Skythova Society of Slavic Artists, founded in the early 1930s by Serhiy Mako. He participated in both of its member exhibitions in 1931 and 1932. He had a solo exhibition in Prague in 1946. In the 1930s he worked as an illustrator for Prager Presse. Rodionov's works are in the collections of the National Gallery in Prague, several regional galleries, the Karásk Gallery of the Memorial of National Literature and the Jewish Museum in Prague. The painter is mentioned in the latest literature on the activities of Russian emigrants in Czechoslovakia during the interwar period.
While Nikolai Rodionov's earlier works are characterised by a rather expressive painterly expression, in his later years, which include the present painting, his form calmed down in favour of an artificial civilism and softened colouring. Comparable works include Mother of the Russian Homeland from 1941 and the undated Mother and Child in a Landscape. One critic who examined his work noted that Rodionov, although he lived most of his life on Czech territory, never became a Czech painter and retained a Russian artistic mentality.