Serdobsk remembers the main illustrator of A.S.Pushkin

This article is reprinted from the Russian Avant-garde Galley forum, to benefit those who do not participate in forums or would like to see it in a different layout.

Today I bring you translation of an article about an interesting graphic artist, Nikolai Kuz'min. I do not have enough material by him yet in order to present him at the website, but I am working on it. Full credits - at the bottom of the article. Enjoy!

Serdobsk remembers the main illustrator of A.S.Pushkin

N.V.Kuz'min.

The town of Serdobsk, located in the South of the Penza district, honors the memory of its son. On January 1st it has been 25 years since the artist's death. We present to you a chapter from the book "History Pages of Serdobsk Area", by Olga Timoshina and Sergey Markin, 2005, dedicated to the People's artist of Russia N.V.Kuz'min.

Nikolai Vassilyevich Kuz'min was born in Serdobsk on December 19th 1890, in a family of tailors.

Illustration for the novel
"Evgeni Onegin" by A.S.Pushkin.

In his memoirs the artist tells of the beginning of his artistic path: "I have been drawing from childhood, and as a boy of some 15 years I have, in my provincial daring, sent my "vignettes" to the journal "Zolotoye Runo" (The Golden Fleece). The editor of "Grif" Publishing house, S.Sokolov, liked the drawings. In 1909 the first two drawings by Kuz'min appeared in the journal "Vesy" (Scales). In 1910 "vignettes" by an unknown pupil of the real school from Serdobsk were published in the journal "Apollon" (Apollo).

In 1911 Kuz'min has moved to St.Petersburg, where he studied at Zvantzeva's school, at the Polytechnic Institute, at the school from the Art Encouraging Society, where he was most influenced by I.Ya.Bilibin, whom Kuz'min remembers with deep gratitude. In 1922-24 he studied at the graphic art faculty of the Academy of Arts.

From 1924 Kuz'min permanently lives in Moscow. He is seriously applying himself to watercolor, creates cityscape studies of Moscow and each summer goes to visit his parents in Serdobsk, where he also paints in watercolor. He has achieved excellent results in this technique, mastering it and discovering his own language, notes M.Sokol'nikov.

The 1920s-30s were an especially active period for Kuz'min. His art was marked by intense search of his own expression, his own line in art. He works with newspaper "Gudok" in Moscow.

Illustration for "Levsha".

In the autumn of 1928 Kuz'min has suddenly come up with "a daring thought", as he would call it later, of illustrating the great work by the great poet. The artist has worked on these illustrations for 5 years. It was about time when the 100th anniversary of the poet's death was coming up.

Self portrait. 1930.

In February 1929 an exhibition was in the Publishing House in Moscow, of drawings of the Thirteen group artists, where for the first time 6 ink drawings were shown from Kuz'min's "Pushkin series". The artist was in luck: the publishing house "Academia" has made a contract with him for illustrations for "Evgeni Onegin". It may be said that Nikolai Kuz'min was, in effect, the first serious illustrator of "Evgeni Onegin". ONe of the art critics has said, that Kuz'min was the first "to come out of the circle of monotonous compositions" in his drawings for Pushkin's novel. Naturally, the artist illustrates the main story lines, but most importantly: he has accepted and used the poet's instructions about a fast and masterful pencil.

Illustration for Pushkin's epigram
"I pity the great wife.."

Cover for the book "A line and a word".

Pushkin with his wife.

The most difficult accusation for an artist from Pushkin's lips was the phrase "An artist - a barbarian with drowsy brush..." - a drowsy brush! It is well known that Pushkin himself could draw excellently. Kuz'min has written of the poet's drawings: "I have admired from a young age...". And Kuz'min's drawings are created in Pushkin's style - a quick line, a sketch, or so it would seem. Kuz'min has used the concept of "tempo" in drawing for a long time - when he characterized the artists of the Thirteen group: "drawing with no corrections, no smoothing of the line. So the tempo would be felt in the artist's work as in the acrobat's work".

Illustration for the comedy
"Gore ot uma" (Woe from wit)
by A.S.Griboyedov.

But this lightness has come at a high price! The most important is that Kuz'min's style is not a literal repetition of Pushkin's. The artist has confessed: "I did not imitate (try to imitate!) Pushkin's drawings, but merely followed his method of pen and ink drawing: directly, without repeating a pencil contour. It is a difficult method: one would waste a heap of paper before achieving the desired result". And in another place: "It was long ago said, that one must work a lot and spill much sweat to create a drawing, which seems effortlessly made. Only the artist knows how much work goes into this 'light style' ".

Accepting the main principle of the poet's drawing, the artist has created his own, fine and artistic manner.

All art critics ever to write about Kuz'min's illustrations for "Evgeni Onegin" have always agreed in one thing: the artist has achieved Pushkin's lightness and perfection in the plastic rendering of complicated states of the poet's psyche.

Illustration for the poem
"Evgeni Onegin" by A.S.Pushkin.

The book contains 150 illustrations: from barely hinted details to complicated compositions, printed in color. By the way, the artist's first wife, Maria Ivanovna Petrova, served as the model for Tatiana in "Evgeni Onegin". The high quality of this edition was confirmed by the "Grand Prix" and the Great Gold medal, awarded to the artist at the World book exhibition in Paris in 1937. A little-known Russian graphic artist receives the highest reward at the World book exhibition. It is easy to see what such a recognition has meant to him and his fellow artists, what this success has meant for the country he represented.

A.S.Pushkin's novel with Kuz'min's illustrations has bee printed from late 1950s until 1970s in over a dozen editions in total of over 2 million books.

N.Kuz'min has illustrated during his long life over 70 authors. Among them - Goethe and Shakespeare; Émile Zola and Edgar Poe; N.V.Gogol and A.S.Griboyedov; M.E.Saltykov-Shchedrin and I.S.Turgenev; M.Gorky and A.P.Chekhov. The list goes on. But his work on illustrations for the works of N.S.Leskov takes a special place in his body of work. The artist has given this writer almost 15 years of work. After Evgeni Onegin" and "Masquerade" "It is not only a different epoch and a different society, it is a different philosophy and different poetics", notes the artist's son, M.N.Kuz'min.

Illustration for the poem
"Evgeni Onegin" by A.S.Pushkin.

Illustration for the poem
"Evgeni Onegin" by A.S.Pushkin.

N.V.Kuz'min, 1950s

Pushkin in Mikhailovskoe.

In 1950s Kuz'min begins his long planned sketches for Leskov's "Skazka o tul'skom Levshe i stal'noi blokhe" (Tale of the left-handed one from Tula and his steel flea). Creating an illustration, every artist takes as a reference line some place he is well familiar with. For Kuz'min it is most often Serdobsk, and this is why his drawings are so exact and intense. Nikolai Vasilievich has grown up among the honest Tula craftsmen. His parents have also spent nights working, and the interior of the workshop where the Lefthanded one and his friends worked reminds him of the home where he grew up. The color illustration to "Levsha" were nominated for Lenin prize.

Illustration for the comedy
"Woe from wit" by A.S.Griboyedov.

When Kuz'min was already over 70 years old, he wrote his first book "Krug Tzarya Solomona" (The circle of King Solomon) and illustrated it himself. The critics and the readers have met the book with much enthusiasm. The books tells of N.V.Kuz'min's childhood; of Serdobsk in the early XX century, where he grew up; of the people, surrounding him at the time. It's form is also original: it consists of short autobiographical stories, accompanied by the author's drawings. Later, other books by Nikolai Vassilievich Kuz'min would be published: "Shtrikh i slovo" (The line and the word) (1967); "Davno i Nedavno" (A long time ago and recently) (1982); "Khudozhnik i kniga" (The artist and the book) (1958). The bring autobiographical essays, memoirs of interesting people, stories about art, books and the work on them. Books illustrated by Kuz'min were published in many countries: Spain, Czechoslovakia, Jordan, Israel, Bulgaria, China, Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Indonesia. He participated in a multitude of international exhibitions in Germany, Holland, Switzerland, England, USA, France, China, Japan.

Illustration for "Levsha" by Leskov.

His literary works ("the circle of King Solomon", "The line and the word") have been published again and again. He was awarded the title of Honored Worker of Arts, and then the People's Artist of RSFSR; was elected a member-correspondent of the USSR Academy of Arts. To celebrate his 80th birthday, the Treytakov Gallery has organized his personal exhibition. Nikolai Vassilievich Kuz'min was awarded the highest award of the Soviet period - the order of the Workers Red Banner. K.I.Chukovcsky has given a very high evaluation to Kuz'min's literary and artistic work in his letter: "Dear Nikolai Vassilievich, I thank you from the heart for your priceless gift, and not so much for the "Fruits of pondering", which brought me joy but did not surprise me; but for "The Circle of Solomon", "Antoinette's Alley", "Happiness", which have rendered me speechless. I always knew you were the most literary of Soviet artists, that you had a finer and deeper understanding of Pushkin, Leskov, Prutkov, Gogol; but I have never suspected that you are also as much a master of the written word as of the precise Kuz'min line. I have read your stories with the most intense criticism, but however I tried, I could not find a single lazy or unnecessary line; any phrase may be framed - a mature, experienced belletrist, the whole style of your writing is so akin to the style of your graphic art (both feel by the same hand), that I see your future book, with your illustrations, appears as unreachable example of artistic completeness..."

N.V.Kuz'min has died January 1st 1987, missing a hundred years of age by three years.

One the artist exclaimed: "What joy that Russia has Pushkin!". We would like to say: what joy that Serdobsk has a right to be proud in being the birth place of such a wonderful master, Nikolai Vassilievich Kuz'min.

The article was translated fully from the Art-Penza website (Russian). You may see here the original page.

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