Nikolay Ivanovich Fedorov is a highly acclaimed Russian painter and textile designer (1918-10-13 to 1990-11-16). Since 1936 his art work was regularly exhibited in Russia and abroad: the World Exhibition in Brussels (1958), the Russian Museum in Leningrad (now Sankt Peterburg) (1964, 1993), Budapest (1952), Genoa (1953), Thessaloniki (1953), Belgrade (1954), Poznan (1954), Milan (1954), Leipzig (1955), Izmir (1955), Damascus (1956), Cairo (1957), Budapest (1958), Paris (1974), Sofia (1977), Berlin (1978). As well as many exhibitions in Moscow: Anniversary Exhibition - 800 years of Moscow, exhibitions at the Union of Artists on Kuznetsky (1936, 1955, 1957), Gorky Street (1955), Begovoy (1965, 1966, 1967, 1971, 1973, 1974), the Academy of Arts (1952), Library them. Lenin (1956-1957), the House of Unions (1957), at the VDNKh (1962, 1965, 1971, 1973, 1974), Manezh (1960, 1961, 1970), the Central House of Art Workers (TSDRI, 1961).
Nikolay was born in 1918 in Vyatka (named Kirov during USSR). His father, Ivan Fyodorovitch Fedorov, graduated in 1890s from Strogonovskoe Art College, was a painter. In 1921 their family moved to Moscow, due to Ivan’s assignment as a head of the department of painting and drawing in Timiryazevskaya Academy.
In 1936 Nikolay graduated from school and joined the Art Department of Textile Institute in Moscow (in that year other artistic universities did no recruitment). At the institute he met his future wife, an artist, Vera Shubnikova. He graduated from the Textile Institute in June 1941. On the first day of the war (WWII) he volunteered. He was not sent to the active army due to the lack of vision in one eye but instead worked at a military factory and later in wood river transportation in Karelia. In Karelia he got surrounded by German troops and was escaping through the forest for months. After the war, Nikolay defended his diploma work and received a second diploma.
In 1946, along with several other young artists, he was sent to the restoration of French tapestry and Jacquard weaving to the Markov’s factory (later called MTOK: Moscow Weaving and Finishing Complex), where he worked all his life and was the chief designer for more than 40 years.
The collection of textile elaborated with his participation won the Grand Prix, Diploma of 1st degree and a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. His tapestries have been exhibited various times at the Leipzig Fair. He is one of the authors of curtains for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, curtains for concert hall in the Hotel Russia (along with Kausov), the assembly hall of the Palace of Culture of Moscow’s Textile Institute (along with Shubnikova) and author of curtains for Concert Hall at the Palace of Culture of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Member of the USSR’s Union of Artists since 1956 and in 1978 awarded with the title of Honored Artist of Russia. His personal exhibitions were held in:
Collections of his works were acquired by the Russian Museum in Sankt Peterbug and by the Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts in Moscow. Collections of his works are permanently exhibited in the State Darwin Museum in Moscow and in the museums in Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk. The joint collection of his and Shubnikova’s art works represented Russian textile art of 1940’s-1950’s in the exposition of Russian Museum in Sankt Peterburg in 1993. This exhibition has made a long tour through several counties in Europe in the 1990’s.
During his school years (1935) Nikolay was one of the organizers and participants of the search expedition for Narofominsky meteorite. The expedition was sponsored by the USSR’s Academy of Sciences. In 1939, he participated as an artist in the last Kulik’s search expedition for the Tunguska meteorite. Later, in 1984 and 1988, he also participated in the Tunguska meteorite expeditions under the guidance of Academician Vasiliev.
