A Truly Significant Holiday - Passport magazine

school,” Nikogosyan says. “It was very
hard. I had no apartment, no money,
no language, nobody.”
Later, he studied at the Academy of
Arts in Leningrad and the prestigious
Surikov Art Institute in Moscow. Such
credentials enabled him to get his first
commissions by the end of the 1940s,
when he became the chief sculptor
of the never-completed Palace of the
Soviets (which was planned to be built
on the site of torn down Cathedral of
Christ the Savior) and the skyscraper
on Kudrinskaya Ploshad. He also did
all the reliefs for the Moscow State University
building.
Nikogosyan created his first paintings
in the 1940s and started exhibiting
from the 1950s. In these works both his
native Armenian origins and his classical
Russian artistic education are vividly
revealed. One can see the influence
of impressionism – Henri Matisse,
Amadeo Modigliani and Edouard Manet
– although some critics claim Nikogosyan
is a realist.
His portraits of women, created
in oil and charcoal, are very impres-
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sive, including one of Princess Diana
painted after her death, who
the artist says he was shaken by. In
Nikogosyan’s interpretation, Diana’s
spirituality and beauty is an organic
blend of her dramatic suffering.
The highlight of the women’s portrait
gallery are pictures of the artist’s
two wives – his late wife Tamara,
and his second wife, Eteri, revealing
their different psychological and
physical characteristics.
According to Nikogosyan, his
most important works have been
created in recent years. Indeed,
his latest works seem to mark a new
period in his creativity. Light and expressive,
they greatly differ from his
previous 60 years’ worth of work.
His house in central Moscow located
on the territory of the Polish
Embassy is to become a museum of
his works. His creations can also be
viewed at the Tretyakov Gallery in
Moscow, at the Russian Museum in
St. Petersburg and some state museums
of the former Soviet Union. P
Art History
March 2009 15