Nikolai Jaroshenko

Painter, draughtsman. Born in Poltava in the family of Major General Alexander Jaroshenko and his wife Lyubov (1846). Studied at the Peter Military Academy in Poltava (1855–57) and moved to St Petersburg (1863), where he studied at the Paul Military Academy (1863), Michael Artillery School (1864–65) and the Michael Artillery Academy (1867–70). Worked at the St Petersburg Armaments Factory (from 1870), resigned with the rank of major general (1892). Studied painting and drawing under Adrian Volkov (1863), under Ivan Kramskoi at the School of Drawing of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists (1864–65) and at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1867–74). Married Maria Navrotina (1864) and spent a month at Ivan Kramskoi’s dacha in Siverskaya near Gatchina (1864). Member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (from 1876), headed the society after Ivan Kramskoi’s death (1887). Painted pictures of revolutionaries and students (late 1870s–early 1880s) and portraits of such artists and writers as Ivan Kramskoi (1876), Vasily Maximov (1878), Gleb Uspensky (1884), Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin (1886), Alexei Plescheyev (1887), Nikolai Ge (1890), Leo Tolstoy (1894) and Vladimir Korolenko (1898). Forced by poor health to move to Kislovodsk, where he bought a house called the White Villa (1885). Visited Italy, Syria, Palestine and Egypt (1895–96). Died of heart failure in Kislovodsk and buried near the St Nicholas Cathedral (1898). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1875). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1875–84, 1886–99), Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1893–94), Pan-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod (1896), international exhibitions in Copenhagen (1897) and Munich (1897) and memorial exhibitions in St Petersburg (1898), Moscow (1899), Kharkiv (1940) and Kiev (1948).