A show of work by three generations of the Sergeyev family just closed at the Heritage Museum in Moscow. The exhibition featured work by Nikolai Sergeevich Sergeev (1908-1989), Sergei Nikolaevich Sergeev (1949-), Lyudmila Fedotovna Dubovik (1917-1942), and Nikolai Sergeevich Sergeev II (1979-).
The show is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Sevastapol. The exhibition includes not only artwork, but also biographical materials including an essay on N.S. Sergeyev by the late Yuri Petrovich Kugach, written for the exhibition. Kugach’s essay is reproduced in full below.
Nikolai Sergeevich Sergeyev (1908 – 1989) by Yuri Kugach
It should be acknowledged first of all that the exhibition of works by Nikolia Sergeyevich Sergeyev is very much up to date. It goes to prove once again that we still have artists who are not swayed by fashions of the day or time-serving considerations but have their own independent views on art and depict reality sincerely and in a true-to-life manner. They develop their unique artistic individuality in the process of creation, which comes quite natural, for each person is unrepeatable. Such artists do not think up loud innovations for the sake of market success. They work hard, studying prototypes profoundly and emotionally. It often happens, however, that their art becomes known to the public and duly appreciated only towards the end of their path in life. N. S. Sergeyev belongs to this category of artists.
Coming to Sergeyev’s exhibition (regrettably posthumous) and finding himself amidst Sergeyev’s landscapes, the viewer senses all of the spiritual purity and clarity of the artist’s vision of the natural scene, sharing the feelings the artist must have experienced when painting his works.
His winter landscapes, so radiant and vibrant, gladden the eye with the purity of the snow which seems to sparkle and smell of winter freshness. One enjoys the sky, so different in each picture. Masterfully depicted, it subtlety conveys different states of nature. The artist does not accentuate the color but always brings out with amazing subtlety the coloristic distinctions of each particular landscape, masterfully conveying the idea of its uniqueness. His colors are true-to-life, gentle and unobtrusive. They are found on site rather than borrowed from someone. His landscapes are superb and very interesting compositionally. Some compositional solutions are unexpected and even challenging, for instance, a massive tree in the forefront crossing the scene vertically. Its silhouette is so interesting and so much at one with the silhouettes of other pictorial elements that the picture arouses unfeigned admiration. The entire scene is solidly built. The trees in his pictures are finely outlined and gently painted out, with no trace of that hackneyed and boring conventionalization.
In his forest scenes the artist masterfully catches that peculiar softness of penumbra with lends the forest an aura of poetical mystery. The tree trunks and boughs are painted out with great accuracy and affection. They chime in perfectly well with the rest of the scene without disrupting the feeling of harmony.
Sergeyev was utmostly sincere in his artistic conception. Working on a particular subject for several days he never lost the keenness of the first impression until the completion of the work. He was an active and energetic person in everyday life, while in his art he appears to us as a subtle poet replete with the feeling of blissful adoration of nature.
One would like to note his little sketches done in a war-ravaged Sevastopol, they are eminently truthful and well-colored. The entire exhibition of Sergeyev’s works gives one a sensation of joy of life and spiritual purity.
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