We are Direct Importers of Russian Art from the Soviet Era offering the best of Soviet Realism, Impressionism and Contemporary Art dating from 1898.

Nina A. Sergeeva

Nina Sergeeva was born on April 15, 1921 in Donetsk, Ukraine into a family that had, before the 1917 revolution, been well known for their cultural activities. Her father was an engineer and her mother was one of the first women in Russia to conduct a major symphony. Growing up in such an environment naturally led Nina to a life devoted to the arts.

From 1928 to 1938 she attended regular school with a concentration in music and ballet. However, by the time she had finished her schooling she knew that she was more than anything a painter. At this time she enrolled in the Art College in Kharkov. During the war years, from 1940 to 1945, she studied in the Kharkov Art Institute under the tutelage of C.M. Prokhorov, N.C. Samokish. Prokhorov was an exhibiter with the Itinerants as well as being a member of the Repin Society and a founding member of the Commune of Artists. Samokish was a famed battle painter and was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941. He was head of the painting department at the Kharkov Institute.

With seven years of intense training under such a strong faculty Nina was accepted into the Moscow International Art Institute (now a part of the Surikov) where she studied with Surikov, S.E. Dudnika, and Igor Grabar, who was her greatest influence and mentor. Her diploma works "Young Figurists" are now in the permanent collection at the Museum of Academic Arts in St. Petersburg.

In 1951 Nina Sergeeva became a member of the Moscow Artists' Union and in 1954 a member of the All Soviet Artists' Union. From 1954 until 1963 she concentrated on perfecting her skills and developing her own unique style. She exhibited often during these years and won the Young Artist Award several years in a row. During these years she also gained the right to travel to the academic dachas where she began to concentrate on landscape painting. The academic dachas gave the artists the opportunity to travel and time to work in a creative atmosphere without distractions. Only the top artists were given such an opportunity.

Nina's first opportunity to participate in a major All Soviet exhibition came in 1957 when she was invited to exhibit in the "Forty Years of the Great Socialist Revolution". The painting that she exhibited "Festival Song" is now in the collection of the Fine Arts Museum in Arkangelsk.

Nina Sergeeva had her first personal exhibition in 1959 and from then until 1974 she traveled all over the Soviet Union doing creative work that resulted in three major collections. She spent five years each painting in the Russian north, the Crimea and in Siberia. These were extremely intense periods of creativity and the works resulting from that labor are in collections all over the world and in dozens of Russian museums.

In 1970 she was invited to participate in the All Soviet exhibition "100 Years of V.E. Lenin." The All Soviet exhibitions took place only every four years and were by invitation only. From 1974 to 1984 she was the head of the Moscow Artists'
Union's Committee for the Development of Art and Culture in the Provinces. While holding this position she organized and participated in numerous exhibitions in Moscow, Volgograd, Arkangelsk and many other regions of Russia.

Nina was one of the few artists to be allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union during the days of Communism. In 1975 she traveled to France. She was a huge success and has regularly exhibited there since.

She organized and participated in the major Moscow exhibition "The Land and the People" in 1985. For this she was given the Golden Palette Award for her devotion to the cultural enrichment of the Soviet Union.

In 1986-87 she participated in an exhibition organized by the Moscow Artists' Union that subsequently traveled to Belarus, France, Italy, Belgium and Japan. At this time she became an important organizer of the cultural exchange between the Soviet Union and France. She is regularly exhibited in paris at the Gallery Natalie Boldyreff.

In 1989 Sergeeva had four personal exhibitions: Moscow, Norelsk, Donetsk, and Kramatorsk. In this same year she named one of the Soviet Union's top 40 artists.

Nina Sergeeva is an Honored Artist and a People's Artist of Russia. She is represented by a major gallery in Moscow and in March 2001 she was included in the Moscow Salon Show of Art and Antiques. She was the only living russian artist to be included in this show which is regularly attended by representatives from Christies Auction House. It has been said of nina Sergeeva, "Art is known to have a wealth of diversity in it's forms of expression. It is important for an artist to find their own way and their own place. They then must find a way to interact in a spiritual way with the viewer. The painter Nina Sergeeva has achieved this by her optimism, liveliness and her perception of the inner world of the artist. Her painting is full of light and gentle expression and her chromatic touch gives the image of reality to her colors". Moscow art critic, Yuri Sergeev (no relation)