Nikolay Koshelev Enter a
feeling, not
a gallery.
Choose a mood and the room itself answers — the light cools or warms, the air changes pace, and only the works that carry that feeling step forward from the dark. Everything else recedes into shadow.
Nikolay Koshelev
The Life and Artistic Journey of Nikolay Koshelev Born to a peasant family of serfs, Nikolay Koshelev began his artistic path in the city of Arzamas. His early years were marked by a self-taught determination; after an unsuccessful apprenticeship to a decorative painter in Nizhni-Novgorod, he taught himself to paint while in the service of a local landowner. His talent eventually led him to the art school in Kazan, where he studied unde
r an expatriate Italian artist named Botelli. This period of development, which included independent work on a monastery wall and an iconostasis, paved the way for his acceptance at the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1860. As his career progressed, Koshelev became a versatile figure in the Russian art world, specializing in portraits, genre scenes, and icon painting. He was a member of the Artel of Artists and worked alongside Ivan Kramsk…