Nikolai Isaev (1891-1977) Nicolas Issaiev, Mykola Isaev "cubist Composition" Oil On Hardboard

Nikolai ISAEV (1891-1977) Nicolas ISSAIEV, Mykola ISAEV "Cubist composition" Oil on hardboard signed lower right with the studio stamp on the back. Nicolas Issaiev is a French artist born near Odessa in 1891 Ukraine. Painter, graphic artist and theater designer, Issaiev studied in Odessa and Kharkiv in the studios of V. Shuchajev and A. Yakovlev and at the Ranson Academy in Paris. He was in the army during the First World War before immigrating in 1919 to Belgrade where he worked at the National Theater as a decorator. In 1925 he moved to Paris where he became known in the artistic circles of Montparnasse by painting landscapes, still lifes and some portraits. However, he was never included among the famous painters of Montparnasse such as Soutine and Foujita and even less among the painters of the School of Paris of which he was nevertheless a part. The only movement and group he managed to integrate was the rather obscure Czech-Belgian Circle (Krug) Group with which he exhibited many times, in Brussels, Paris and Belgrade. In 1940-1945, he settled in the south of France to live alone. After the Second World War, he made frequent stays in Switzerland, Italy and Spain. Between 1945 and 1950, Issaiev produced numerous illustrations for art publishing works, notably for the publications of Pierre de Ronsard, Edgar Allan Poe and Nikolay Gogol. In the 1950s and 1960s, he exhibited in Paris at the La Boétie and A. Weil galleries as well as at the P. Bernet gallery in New York. He participated with several of his paintings in the major exhibition that took place in Paris in 1961 and then in Russia in 1974 under the title Les Artistes russes de l'École de Paris, thus finding the beginnings of recognition three years before his death. (Galerie Chavanne)