Feodor Chaliapin had this painting called “Izbas. The North” by Nikolay Clodt in his collection at home in Moscow. In 2000, at the bequest of his daughter Irina Chaliapina-Baksheyeva, the painting was transferred to the Chaliapin collection of the museum.
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin met the painter Nikolay Clodt while working at Savva Mamontov’s Moscow Private Opera. An adventurer, a patron of the arts, a “collector of Russian talents” and a railroad owner, Mamontov financed an expedition of Russian artists to the Far North in the late 19th century. His goal was to lay new branch lines of the main railroad and, before that, he wanted Russian society to know more about those secluded lands.
The painter Konstantin Korovin took part in the first expedition to the Arkhangelsk region and was so impressed by the northern landscapes, the grandeur of nature and the extraordinary colors that he would repeatedly go back. Once he was accompanied by Nikolay Clodt. The landscape with rustic northern huts was one of the latter’s impressions of that trip.
Nikolay Clodt was a landscape artist, a scenic painter and a stage designer. He came from a family of hereditary architects, painters and sculptors — Barons Clodt von Jürgensburg. His grandfather was Pyotr Karlovich Clodt, the sculptor who created one of the main symbols of Saint Petersburg — the group of equestrian statues on the Anichkov Bridge.
Nikolay Clodt graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture with honors and worked as a teacher at the School of Fine Arts organized by the painter and architect Anatoly Gunst. Clodt repeatedly participated in exhibitions of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions, and the Union of Russian Artists. He also attended many important art events held in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
Being a stage painter, Nikolay Clodt collaborated with the leading theaters of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Based on Konstantin Korovin’s sketches, he created the scenery for the ballet “The Little Humpbacked Horse”; he also collaborated with Alexander Golovin and designed the production of “The Death of the Gods” for the Mariinsky Theater, following Alexandre Benois’ sketches. In 1914, together with a group of other artists, Clodt worked on the scenery for the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” in Saint Petersburg.
