Sudakov Nikolay Maksimovich
Gorky street. Mossovet.

Gorky street. Mossovet.
Year: 1955.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Size: 45х65.


Sudakov Nikolay Maksimovich (Moscow, 1925-1991)

Nikolay Maksimovich SUDAKOV (Moscow, 1925-1991) Nikolai Sudakov is a real romantic within the framework of the “grand style” called socialist realism. He expanded this framework, having received a high-quality professional education - first at the Stroganov School, and then at the Advanced Training Courses for Artists. His teachers were Alexander Kuprin, Dmitry Tegin and Iosif Rubanov - colorists and landscape painters of the highest class. And this old-school training did not use Nikolai Sudakov to become a hack even when he worked as a monumentalist artist in the team of reenactors of the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements (brigade contracts assumed "running meters of painting").Together with him, dozens of artists from the Moscow school participated in the creation of the myth of Soviet life, including the famous avant-garde artist Alexander Labas. For many of them, the state order in the post-war period was almost a lottery ticket, since it allowed them to survive elementary. Sudakov, the state order did not change at all: he remained a chamber painter of the traditional school. It is also important that Nikolai Sudakov has never been a politically engaged artist. His best paintings are landscapes of old and new Moscow. Even the most “postcard”, representative ones (for example, “Morning. Moscow Kremlin” - one of the lots with Sovcom) he writes as an impressionist observer. He is a participant in several combined thematic exhibitions: "50th Anniversary of the Soviet Circus" (1969), "50th Anniversary of October" (1967), "30th Anniversary of Victory" (1975). But each of his exhibition (and therefore commissioned) works is the artist's reflection on given themes: both chamber portraits - "The Magician" and "Acrobat" - with an impressive pictorial contrast of light and shadow. And a chaotic fair-demonstration on Red Square ("50th Anniversary of October" - one of the lots with Sovcom). And “The Unconquered” is a sketch about the war in the author's interpretation of the “harsh style”. Nikolai Sudakov had only one personal exhibition with a catalog published on the occasion (1970), for which he selected those pictures that he wrote for himself - as a writer writes on the table. But does a real artist have works that are not addressed to a potential viewer? Or to the interlocutor? After all, art is always a personal story that presupposes a dialogue. Even within the framework of the “big style” called socialist realism.