Nikolai Alexeyev

Graphic artist, painter, illustrator, designer, applied artist. Born in the family of Vasily Alexeyev in the town of Morshansk in the north of Tambov Province (1894). Studied painting under Fyodor Krichevsky at the Kiev School of Art (1912–17) and architecture at the Ukrainian Academy of Arts (1917). Designed Ukrainian ten-grivna banknotes and playing cards (1918). Worked as an industrial artist and an illustrator for Ukrainian publishing houses (1918–23). Moved to Petrograd (1923), where he studied graphic art under Dmitry Mitrokhin at the VKhUTEIN (1923–26). Designed postage stamps (1930) and illustrated Émile Zola’s Germinal (1930), Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler (1930) and A Gentle Creature (1933), Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls (1930) and Taras Bulba (1934) and Maxim Gorky’s Mother (1933). Died of tuberculosis in Leningrad (1934). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1925). Contributed to the VI Exhibition of the Community of Artists at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1925), Graphic Art in the USSR (1917–27) at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1927), Artistic Ex Libris (1917–27) at the Public Library in Leningrad (1928), Third Exhibition of Graphic Art at the House of Printing in Moscow (1928), Contemporary Ukrainian Graphic Art in Lviv (1932), Artists of the RSFSR Over Fifteen Years at the State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (1933–34), Engraving and Lithography by Leningrad Artists for 1933 at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1934), Play and Passion in Russian Fine Art at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg (1999), Internationale Buchkunst Ausstellung at the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig (1927), Die Internationale Presse-Ausstellung (“Pressa”) in Cologne (1928) and a posthumous one-man show in Leningrad (1934).