Andrey Andreyevich Karelin (5 (17) January 1866, Kostroma — 1928, Ashkhabad) was a painter and the son of Nizhny Novgorod photographer and artist Karelin. He carried out commissions for the Ministry of the Imperial Court, took part in founding the Nizhny Novgorod City Art and History Museum, and headed the Society of Historical Painters. He spent his final years in Turkmenistan [1].
Childhood and Education
He was the third child of Andrey Osipovich and Yevgeniya Nikitichna Karelin; his mother died in childbirth. His widowed father remarried and soon moved the family to Nizhny Novgorod, so from an early age the younger Karelin's life was bound up with that city. He was raised by his father's second wife, Olga Grigoryevna, née Lermontova, a relative of the poet [1].
In the 1870s the boy frequently posed for his father, the pioneer of artistic photography. As he grew older he began helping in the photographic studio, learning photography and printing under his father's guidance, and eventually started producing his own work [1].
At seventeen, having graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod Realnoye Uchilishche, he enrolled at the Academy of Arts, where his teacher was K. E. Makovskiy. In 1892 his painting "The Foreign Jester" earned him the title of Honorary Free Associate of the Academy of Arts [1].
Works
Having gained recognition in professional circles, Karelin began fulfilling commissions for the Ministry of the Imperial Court: he painted icons, canvases on religious and historical subjects, and portraits [1].
For the interior decoration of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in St. Petersburg he prepared cartoons for ten mosaics: one depicting the parable of Poor Lazarus after death, and nine mosaics on the pilasters portraying apostles, martyrs, and venerable saints [1].
For the tercentenary of the House of Romanov, celebrated in 1913, Karelin painted a ten-metre canvas depicting the accession of Mikhail Fyodorovich. For this work Nicholas II granted him personal nobility [1].
Karelin's paintings are held in the reserve collections of the Hermitage and the art museums of Nizhny Novgorod and Dnepropetrovsk [1].
Activities in Nizhny Novgorod
In 1896 Karelin took part in decorating the pavilion of the 16th All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition, held in Nizhny Novgorod. In the summer of that same year, largely through his efforts, the Nizhny Novgorod City Art and History Museum was opened in the specially restored and converted premises of the Dmitrievskaya Tower of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin of the The Kremlin [1].
Like his father, he was a member of the Russian Photographic Society and carried on his father's educational and charitable work: he gave free instruction to talented children from poor families at the drawing school founded by Andrey Osipovich, organized exhibitions, and established art societies [1].
Karelin left around sixty articles on questions of art, photography, pedagogy, and museum administration. From 1896 to 1900 he headed the Society of Historical Painters, which organized themed exhibitions and competitions and distributed art publications of historical content [1].
Turkmenistan
Karelin spent the final years of his life, from 1925 to 1928, in Turkmenistan, where he worked as chief artist of Turkmenizdат [1].
During his three years in Ashkhabad he accomplished the following [1]:
- He founded and headed the art department of the Turkmen State Museum.
- He donated his personal collection to the museum — more than three hundred paintings, sculptures, and works of decorative and applied art.
- He served as architect of a monument in Ashkhabad (1927), reviving in the process the production of traditional Central Asian majolica.
- He produced the drawing that formed the basis for the coat of arms of the Turkmen SSR (1926).
Sources
- biblmr.r52.ru — "City Day. Nizhny Novgorod" — Markicheva O. An artist, son of an artist: on the 155th anniversary of A. A. Karelin